MUI Asks People To Protect Each Other's Harmony, Don't Create Expansion

Chairman of the MUI for Da'wah and Ukhuwah Cholil Nafis. BETWEEN/Asep Firmansyah/am.

JAKARTA - The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) invites the public to maintain inter-religious harmony by mutual respect for their own faiths and beliefs.

"We prevent evil by making chaos, lest we cause greater harm," said MUI chairman Cholil Nafis as quoted by ANTARA, Wednesday, July 2.

Cholil Nafis regretted the destruction of a house that was allegedly used as a place of worship in Sukabumi, West Java, by a group of people a few days ago.

According to him, this action is an anarchic form and takes legal action on its own. This action must be rejected because it is not good.

"We hope that the public will not enforce the law on their own, because there are already law enforcers," said Cholil Nafis.

Cholil regretted and disagreed with the action and appealed to the public to hand it over to the police.

On the other hand, the police are also asked to immediately respond to the report quickly, so that people do not take legal steps themselves.

"We hope that everything will be returned to the law, please make it easier to build their respective houses of worship and be able to worship as well as possible," said Cholil Nafis.

Cholil Nafis emphasized anticipatory steps so that incidents like this do not happen again. This step is by unifying the ideas and rules that have been made by the government, then the Religious Harmony Forum (FKUB) from the center to the regions.

"As well as involving regional scholars in resolving and giving literacy to the public that religion of belief is guaranteed by the government, they also have rules to use places of worship," said Cholil Nafis.