Source: World Watch Monitor, December 13, 2017<\/p>\n
Indonesian Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (better known as \u201cAhok\u201d) fought back tears during the first day of his blasphemy trial [December 13].<\/p>\n
Ahok\u2014only the second Christian and the second governor of Chinese descent to lead the Indonesian capital city, Jakarta\u2014is alleged to have \u201cmisused\u201d a Qur\u2019anic verse (which, some say, suggests Muslims should not be ruled by non-Muslims) during a speech in early October.<\/p>\n
Some Muslim leaders accused him of insulting Islam by quoting from the Qur\u2019an. He apologized, but said his comments were directed at politicians \u201cincorrectly\u201d using the verse against him and not a criticism of the verse itself.<\/p>\n
The trial is widely seen as a test of the world\u2019s most populous Muslim-majority nation\u2019s stance on religious freedom, since the country has a large Christian minority.<\/p>\n
It was broadcast live on TV and Ahok continued to protest his innocence, telling the court: \u201cI had no intention of insulting Muslims or insulting the clergy. On that basis, I plead with the judges to consider my exception plea.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u00bb Also read The Story Behind a Massive Muslim Protest against a Christian Governor<\/a> (Christian Science Monitor).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: World Watch Monitor, December 13, 2017 Indonesian Christian governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (better known as \u201cAhok\u201d) fought back tears during the first day of his blasphemy trial [December 13]. Ahok\u2014only the second Christian and the second governor of Chinese descent to lead the Indonesian capital city, Jakarta\u2014is alleged to have \u201cmisused\u201d a Qur\u2019anic verse … Continue reading INDONESIA: Christian Governor Insists No Insult Intended<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6879","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6879","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6879"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6879\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6880,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6879\/revisions\/6880"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6879"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6879"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6879"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}