Some 80,000 Islamists have met in the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, to press for the re-establishment of a caliphate across the Muslim world. The Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir - which organised the conference - said it had been the largest gathering of Muslim activists from around the world. However, the group is illegal in many countries and key speakers have been stopped from entering Indonesia.
A caliphate - or single state for Muslims - last existed in 1924.
Hizb ut-Tahrir regards this as the ideal form of government, because it follows what it believes are the laws of God as set out in the Koran, rather than laws designed by man. The groups says it seeks to set up a caliphate by non-violent means - but many experts see it as ideologically close to jihadist groups.
It is banned in most of the Middle East and parts of Europe.
The BBC's Lucy Williamson in Jakarta says that of the estimated 80,000 people packing the stadium hired for the event, the overwhelming majority were women, who have travelled from across Indonesia to attend. If the audience turnout was impressive, not so the speakers lined up to address the crowd, our correspondent adds. One by one, over the past few days, seven of the delegates invited to speak have dropped out.
Barred
Hizb ut-Tahrir says at least two of its foreign activists - one from Britain and another from Australia - were barred by the Indonesian government. Key speakers were barred from travelling to Indonesia. The group's spokesman Muhammad Ismail Yusanto said: "The organising committee deplores the deportation because they came to Indonesia... to give their good advice for the progress of Islam, for the progress of this country." Controversial Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir was also scheduled to address the conference, but organisers asked him not to attend after police raised security concerns. Hizb ut-Tahrir - or Liberation Party - was founded in Jerusalem in the 1950s by Palestinian religious scholar Taqiuddin an-Nabhani. Today it has a mainly clandestine following in the Middle East, a large presence in Central Asia - where hundreds of its members have been jailed - and active supporters in the West, including London, which is believed to be one of its main bases. Many experts see it as ideologically close to jihadist groups, and suspect its commitment to peaceful means is purely tactical.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6942688.stm
JPTF 2007/08/12
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