KUALA LUMPUR: Worshippers in Indonesia, the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, are set to go green with a new initiative that aims to establish 1,000 eco-mosques by 2020.
Launched this week by Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the initiative will help the mosques to source renewable energy, manage their water and food needs sustainably, reduce and recycle waste and provide environmental education.
The project will see the top Muslim clerical body work with the private sector, the government’s health and planning ministries, universities, and other religious groups in a bid to boost environmental awareness in communities across the country.
“Most Muslims in Indonesia listen more to religious leaders than the government,” Hayu Prabowo, head of environment and natural resources at the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.
“If an Islamic leader says something they will follow but if the government says something, they may not.”
Indonesia, with 250 million people, has a mixed environmental record.
The archipelago is the world’s top thermal coal exporter and palm oil producer, which has led to the clearing and development of swathes of forest land and intense international pressure to limit deforestation.
Many of Indonesia’s rural and poorest provinces suffer regular droughts due to climate change, while children’s education is often hampered by the lack of regular power supply.
Hening Parlan, coordinator for environment and disaster management at Aisyiyah, the women’s wing of Indonesia’s second-largest Islamic organization Muhammadiyah, said the idea of eco-mosques stemmed from asking how to make mosques the center for environment and education within a community.
“For many Indonesians, their understanding of the environment only happens when they see the impact of climate change (rather than through education)... if they suffer from floods or landslides for example,” Parlan said.
She said the initiative would help mosques establish better water supplies and storage facilities, offer fundraising advice and provide funding to mosques to help them become environmentally friendly.
Solar power and biogas will also be promoted over fossil fuels and imams will teach better environmental awareness.
The eco-mosque initiative is not the first time MUI has taken the lead on the environment — it has also issued edicts, or fatwas, on forest fires and sustainable mining.
There are more than 800,000 mosques in Indonesia but officials hope to create more eco-mosques after the initial 1,000 are established and also include other places of worship.
An eco-mosque roll-out of this scale is rare. In Dubai a mosque built in 2014 was the first to meet the US Green Building Council’s guidelines, while Britain, the US, Morocco and Malaysia all have mosques aiming to be more green.
“We need concrete action to help mosques and their communities overcome the oncoming water and energy crisis by building resilience,” said Prabowo.
Jakarta unveils plan to roll out 1,000 eco-mosques by 2020
Jakarta unveils plan to roll out 1,000 eco-mosques by 2020
Uganda partially restores internet after president wins 7th term
- “The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report
KAMPALA: Ugandan authorities have partially restored internet services late after 81-year-old President Yoweri Museveni won a seventh term to extend his rule into a fifth decade with a landslide victory rejected by the opposition.
Users reported being able to reconnect to the internet and some internet service providers sent out a message to customers saying the regulator had ordered them to restore services excluding social media.
“We have restored internet so that businesses that rely on internet can resume work,” David Birungi, spokesperson for Airtel Uganda, one of the country’s biggest telecom companies said. He added that the state communications regulator had ordered that social media remain shut down.
The state-run Uganda Communications Commission said it had cut off internet to curb “misinformation, disinformation, electoral fraud and related risks.” The opposition, however, criticized the move saying it was to cement control over the electoral process and guarantee a win for the incumbent.
The electoral body in the East African country on Saturday declared Museveni the winner of Thursday’s poll with 71.6 percent of the vote, while his rival pop star-turned-politician Bobi Wine was credited with 24 percent of the vote.
A joint report from an election observer team from the African Union and other regional blocs criticized the involvement of the military in the election and the authorities’ decision to cut off internet.
“The internet shutdown implemented two days before the elections limited access to information, freedom of association, curtailed economic activities ... it also created suspicion and mistrust on the electoral process,” the team said in their report.
In power since 1986 and currently Africa’s third longest-ruling head of state, Museveni’s latest win means he will have been in power for nearly half a century when his new term ends in 2031.
He is widely thought to be preparing his son, Muhoozi Kainerugaba, to take over from him. Kainerugaba is currently head of the military and has expressed presidential ambitions.
Wine, who was taking on Museveni for a second time, has rejected the results of the latest vote and alleged mass fraud during the election.
Scattered opposition protests broke out late on Saturday after results were announced, according to a witness and police.
In Magere, a suburb in Kampala’s north where Wine lives, a group of youths burned tires and erected barricades in the road prompting police to respond with tear gas.
Police spokesperson Racheal Kawala said the protests had been quashed and that arrests were made but said the number of those detained would be released later.
Wine’s whereabouts were unknown early on Sunday after he said in a post on X he had escaped a raid by the military on his home. People close to him said he remained at an undisclosed location in Uganda. Wine was briefly held under house arrest following the previous election in 2021.
Wine has said hundreds of his supporters were detained during the months leading up to the vote and that others have been tortured.
Government officials have denied those allegations and say those who have been detained have violated the law and will be put through due process.
