A protester kicks a banner with President Emmanuel Macron’s image on it during a protest near the French embassy in Jakarta on Nov 2. (Photo: Konradus Epa/UCA News)
Thousands of Muslims took to city streets across Indonesia on Nov. 2, to protest against French President Emmanuel Macron’s defense of caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad as well as his comments on Islam.
The caricatures that have appeared in publications such as France’s satirical Charlie Hebdo magazine are deemed as protected speech, according to the French president.
His comments came after a history teacher was beheaded last month by an extremist for showing a cartoon of the prophet to his students in a lesson on free speech and last week’s killing of three people at the Notre Dame Basilica in Nice.
In defending freedom of expression in France, President Macron also called the teacher’s assailant an Islamic terrorist and claimed that Islam was a religion in crisis, angering Muslims worldwide.
The Indonesian protests were held in Jakarta, Bandung, Surabaya, Medan and Makassar.
In Jakarta, more than 2,000 protesters from radical Islamic groups such as the 212 Alumni Brotherhood and the Islamic Defenders’ Front (FPI) marched to the French embassy where they tore up banners displaying Macron’s image, branded him “the real terrorist” and called for the ambassador’s expulsion.
The protesters were prevented from storming the embassy by a heavy police presence.
FPI chairman Ahmad Sabri Lubis told the protesters that Macron’s defense of the Prophet Muhammad caricatures was an insult against Islam.
Novel Bakmumin from the 212 Alumni Brotherhood called on Indonesian Muslims to boycott all French products. It’s what this French blasphemy deserves, he said.
Meanwhile, Father Antonius Benny Susetyo, a member of the presidential unit promoting communal tolerance, said Macron's calling the teacher’s killer an “Islamic terrorist” was unnecessary.
"The [terrorist] violence certainly has nothing to do with religion,” Father Susetyo told UCA News, adding that terrorism should not be attributed to religion.
The priest also criticized freedom of opinion “that has gone overboard and been manipulated to insult religious values and symbols.”