YOURSAY | ‘Indonesia is now going down the same slippery road that Malaysia is going.’

Jakarta’s Ahok should have never been indicted

Anonymous_1388029052: Sepang MP Mohamed Hanipa Maidin, I must say you are a rare learned, sensible and fair Muslim leader in this country where many Muslims can’t dispense justice and fair play to the non-Muslims.

Even if a non-Muslim is a capable and talented government state leader, many Muslims will still find fault with him but will gladly accept a totally corrupt and incompetent Muslim leader. Such is the mindset of many Muslim Malaysians. Very sad indeed.

Swipenter: It is obvious that the Islamic world is giving in to their radical Muslims' demands and ideologies as the level-headed and rational ones have no courage to speak up against the radical ones.

They are afraid to be branded as traitors to their faith if they were to stand up and speak against extremism and so they prefer to let the former hijack Islam and impose their version of Islam onto others thinking that they are safe from these extremists because they share the same faith.

How wrong can they be. Just take a look around the world. No one is safe from these extremists.

Jstom: It has become common among some Muslims that if a non-Muslim quotes from the Quran, it is automatically “biadap” and blasphemous. God help us.

Airplayer: The strengths and weaknesses of any religious faith is clearly manifested by its believers/followers' attitudes and responses towards justice, fairness and righteousness.

Extremism is not from God. Extremism is self-serving. It is from the flesh at best, and at worst, from the devil.

Anonymous #04243331: Bravo YB. This is something lacking with our Muslim brethren. The heart controls the mind at the expense of justice.

BTN: Muslims are morally responsible to uphold the good name of Islam by living their lives right and practicing justice.

Taking the slightest opportunity to condemn and irresponsibly charge another person with blasphemy does not bode well for the religion.

Time and again, the West try to say that it’s a religion of peace but those followers who professed to be Muslim, who are acting in an unreasonable manner and also violent in nature, had portrayed the religion in a negative manner.

In Ahok’s (Basuki Tjahaja Purnama’s) case he is being victimised just because he is a Chinese and Christian. The Indonesian people do not appreciate what he has done for them.

Anonymous_1388029052: London has a Muslim as mayor and the people there are quite happy with him.

I am sure the Londoners do not look at his skin colour and religion when voting for him. It shows their maturity.

Anonymous_1429175092: There is no bad religion. There are only bad people. These are the people who taint Islam. They should be ashamed to claim to be Muslims.

Rick Teo: Indonesia is now going down the same slippery road that Malaysia is going.

Religious extremism is rearing its ugly head there and Indonesians are following the footsteps of their Malaysian brethren.

Failed Already Failed State: It is all a political move calculated to favour some greedy politician who wants Ahok’s seat and uses the religion to blatantly influence the minds of the stupid and not thinking ones.

This man is doing one hell of a job trying to make infrastructure work in that jammed-up place and they throw the same old tricks at him, like we do here.

Mamadias: Unfortunately, extremism rules nowadays. I hope Ahok is found innocent so that we can prove to the world that justice prevails even in harsh conditions. That is the hallmark of justice in Islam.

Good one, YB Hanipa.

Boeyks: YB, I truly respect you for your clarification and stand. I, like many others, also believe that Ahok did not make statements against other religions as others want us to believe.

Recently we were warned by the leader of a certain party that non-Muslims should not get involved in religious matters such as hudud. And he pointed to the Ahok incident as an indication of what could happen.

We have no intention of belittling others but only want justice and our due rights to have our views heard.

Just a Malaysian: A bad Muslim administrator is seen as many times better than a good non-Muslim administrator.

You can see the obvious backwardness of most Muslim countries - war, fighting, corruption, refugees, poverty, suffering, etc. Somewhere along the way the true spirit of a great religion has been hijacked and used as a political weapon.

Tok Karut: Ahok was brought up in a Muslim family who adopted him and respected his right to freedom of religion. His Muslim family remains close to him and he is a member of that family then and now.

Unfortunately, the Jakarta administration has bowed to extremism.

Oscar Kilo: We need more moderate level-headed Muslims to speak up. Otherwise, Islam will be represented by the voices of the extremists who make more noise and are willing to use violence to get their message across.

The "silent majority" is a minority if it remains silent.

Anonymous #33227154: Extremist Muslims really give Islam a wrong and bad image. Islam is a peaceful religion, but it's been abused by extremists to oppress others.

We need more good Muslims to stand up against these extremists to safeguard the good reputation of Islam.

Pokokgetah: As a former leader in PAS and currently a member of Amanah, I presume the writer is a pious Muslim.

It is clear from his writing that deference to the faith and adherence to reasoning are not mutually exclusive traits.

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