MUARA, Indonesia: Indonesia’s bid to lure more visitors by spreading halal tourism across the archipelago is facing a backlash, with a Christian celebration of pigs — forbidden for Muslims — the latest act of dissent.
The weekend festival-cum-protest in Sumatra, featuring pig racing, chubbiest hog contests and a porcine fashion show, comes as holiday hotspot Bali pushes back against rolling out more Muslim-friendly services on the Hindu island.
Critics say a government plan to cash in on halal tourism — part of a broader campaign to replicate Bali’s success nationwide — is another threat to minority rights in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
And critics have warned that the sprawling nation of 260 million — where nearly 90 percent of the population follows Islam — is taking hard-right turn with a conservative cleric now installed as vice president and hard-liners growing increasingly vocal in public life.
Indonesia’s reputation for tolerant Islam has been under fire for years.
Pushing halal tourism in areas with religious minorities — including Christians, Buddhists and Hindus — may do more harm than good, warned Ali Munhanif, an expert on political Islam at Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University Jakarta.
“The phenomenon signals an effort to institutionalize conservatism,” he said.
“Bali successfully manages its tourism sector without using a ‘Hindu’ label.”
But advocates say halal tourism is misunderstood.
“There is a public misperception that halal tourism is Islamization. That is wrong and it’s why some people overreact to the concept,” said Zainut Tauhid, Indonesia’s deputy minister of religious affairs.
“It is about providing necessary facilities for Muslim visitors such as prayer rooms. So it is facilitation rather than Islamization.”
That view isn’t shared by some around Lake Toba, a scenic crater lake in Sumatra where the weekend pig festival was held.
Most locals are Batak, a Christian ethnic group that puts pigs at the center of its traditional cuisine, with hog farming a key source of income.
Last month, provincial governor Edy Rahmayadi raised eyebrows when said he wanted to boost tourism with Islam-friendly facilities and services.
That included opening more halal restaurants and mosques, as well as banning the public slaughter of hogs, with the governor saying the practice could turn off Muslim visitors.
“This idea to bring in halal tourism is going to divide people,” festival organizer Togu Simorangkir told AFP
“It’s a step back for tourism here,” he added.
About 1,000 people dropped by the event, including children who scribbled in pig-themed coloring books and adults watching as hogs were judged on their plump proportions.
“Batak culture is particularly known for its pigs,” said higher schooler Edo Sianturi.
“We’ve been raising them and earning a living from them for generations.”
Visitor Sabrina Singarimbun, a Muslim student in a head-covering hijab, was keen to see which best-dressed pig would win the festival’s fashion contest.
“I disagree with the (halal tourism) idea because it’s Batak culture here and most people aren’t Muslim,” she said.
Elsewhere, halal tourism is often seen as a lucrative business opportunity.
Thailand and Taiwan are among regional destinations tapping the halal tourism sector, which a 2017 study found will be worth some $300 billion annually.
This month, Indonesia ushered in new halal labelling rules for consumer products and services, as the government eyes travelers from other Islamic nations to rev up its much-touted “10 New Balis” tourism push, which includes Lake Toba.
But efforts to cater to Muslim visitors has drawn controversy.
This summer, officials in Lombok — an island next to Bali that has many Muslim-friendly services — quickly rolled back plans to set up separate camping areas for male and female hikers in Mount Rinjani National Park after a public backlash.
Two restaurants in Makassar on Sulawesi island, meanwhile, were forced to close after a Muslim group in July complained that the smell of their pork dishes was wafting over to nearby mosques and halal restaurants.
Back in North Sumatra, the governor’s spokesman Muhammad Ikhsan said his boss was misunderstood.
“He just wants to make Lake Toba a friendly place for Muslim visitors,” Ikhsan said, adding that he hoped it would also curtail the environmental impact of pig farming.
“What we want is just to make things organized, not to make it a halal place.”
Indonesia’s halal tourism bid faces pig pushback
Indonesia’s halal tourism bid faces pig pushback
- Political Islam expert says pushing Halal tourism in religious minority areas may do more harm than good
- Indonesia’s deputy minister of religious affairs said halal tourism does not equal Islamization
What to know about the search for the Brown University shooting suspect
- The video from more than hour before the attack shows the suspect running at times in quiet residential streets near campus
PROVIDENCE, R.I.: With the Brown University shooter still on the loose Tuesday, authorities released new video of a suspect and police fanned out to Providence schools to reassure parents, kids and teachers as investigators pushed for new evidence that might help them crack the case.
Here’s a look at what to know about the attack and the search:
Search on after new video and description of suspect
Authorities released a video timeline and a slightly clearer image of the man suspected in Saturday’s attack in an engineering building classroom, where two students were killed and nine were wounded. The video from more than hour before the attack shows the suspect running at times in quiet residential streets near campus.
In videos previously made public, the suspect’s face was masked or turned away and authorities were only able to give a vague description of him as having a stocky build and about 5 feet, 8 inches (173 centimeters) tall.
The gunman fired more than 40 rounds from a 9 mm handgun, a law enforcement official told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to discuss the investigation publicly.
Police have asked the public for tips, and said they had received about 200 by Tuesday. Col. Oscar Perez, the Providence police chief, asked the public Tuesday to look at their camera systems in the area where the person was walking to review any footage that goes back a week.
Authorities on Sunday released a different person of interest after determining he wasn’t behind the attack, which happened in a first-floor classroom where students were cramming for an exam. Providence police spokeswoman Kristy dosReis said the man’s detention didn’t affect the ongoing investigation.
Police fan out to local schools
Tensions remain high in Providence. Ten state troopers were assigned to support the local police sent to beef up security at schools, district Superintendent Javier Montañez said. The district said it canceled after-school activities, sporting events and field trips this week “out of an abundance of caution.”
The attack and the shooter’s escape also have raised questions about campus security, including a lack of security cameras, and led to calls for better locks on campus doors. But some said what they called the real issue needs to be addressed.
“The issue isn’t the doors, it’s the guns,” said Zoe Kass, a senior who fled the engineering building Saturday.
Authorities have said that one reason they lacked video of the shooter was because Brown’s older engineering building doesn’t have many cameras.
University defends response
Brown President Christina Paxson defended the university’s response, saying it was deeply committed to the safety, security and well-being of its students. She also said the campus is equipped with 1,200 cameras.
“I have been deeply saddened by people questioning that,” she said Tuesday. “As time goes on, there is a natural instinct to assign responsibility for tragic events like this. Anxiety here is very natural, but the shooter is responsible.”
Paxson said the university has two security systems. One system is activated at a time of emergency and sent out text messages, phone calls and emails that, in this shooting, reached 20,000 individuals. The other system features three sirens across campus, but Paxson said that would not be activated in an active shooter situation.
“Those get activated when there is a broad scale emergency, and we want people to rush into buildings,” she said. “In the case of an active shooter, activating that system could have caused people to rush into Barus and Holley.”
When pressed by a reporter who noted the university website says the sirens can be used when there is an active shooter, Paxson reaffirmed she didn’t think it would be used in that situation.
“It depends on the circumstances and where the active shooter would be but you don’t want to ever get people rushing into buildings that might be the site of an active shooter,” she said.
Details about the victims emerge
Two of the wounded students had been released from the hospital as of Tuesday, Brown spokeswoman Amanda McGregor said. Of the seven others, one remained in critical condition, five were in critical but stable condition and one was in stable condition, Providence Mayor Brett Smiley said.
One of the wounded, 18-year-old freshman Spencer Yang of New York City, told the New York Times and the Brown Daily Herald there was a scramble after the gunman entered the room. Yang said he wound up on the ground and was shot in the leg.
The students who died were MukhammadAziz Umurzokov, an 18-year-old freshman from Brandermill, Virginia, and Ella Cook, a 19-year-old sophomore from a suburb of Birmingham, Alabama.
Jacob Spears, 18, a freshman from Evans, Georgia, was shot in the stomach, “but through sheer adrenaline and courage, he managed to run outside, where he was aided by others,” according to a GoFundMe site organized for him.
Durham Academy, a private K-12 school in Durham, North Carolina, confirmed that a recent graduate, Kendall Turner, was wounded.
