Indonesian president highlights nationalism amid controversy

August 13, 2018 Article

Indonesia’s president, Joko Widodo, brandished his nationalist and religious credentials on Friday amid reports he had come under pressure from Islamic party allies to accept a conservative cleric as running mate in next year’s election.

In a last-minute decision, Widodo announced on Thursday Ma’ruf Amin, who heads the board of advisers of the country’s biggest mass Muslim organisation, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), would be his vice presidential candidate for April’s poll.

The duo will be challenged by the former general Prabowo Subianto and the private equity tycoon and Jakarta deputy governor Sandiaga Uno.

Wearing a crisp white shirt emblazoned with the slogan “Clean. With the people. Real work.”, Widodo told supporters on Friday he would “safeguard national resources”.

He cited as evidence recent policy decisions to nationalise oil and gas assets and seize majority ownership of the huge Grasberg gold and copper mine from the U.S. based Freeport-McMoran.

“It is proof that we are sovereign,” he said.

Amin later led the crowd in prayer, asking God to “give us the capability and spirit to safeguard us against forces that try to destroy, to weaken us and our country.”

The pair left the stage as Islamic singing, rendered in Arabic, played.

The cleric then delivered a sermon at Friday prayers at Jakarta’s biggest mosque.

Prabowo and Uno were to have gone to the mosque before formally registering as candidates at the election commission but changed their plans and prayed at a nearby mosque instead.

‘STAUNCH CONSERVATIVE’

Amin also heads the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), an influential group for clerics that has issued fatwas hostile to minorities, including the Islamic sect Ahmadiyah and the gay community.

He also issued a statement accusing former Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama of blasphemy for insulting the Koran, an edict that led hundreds of thousands of protesters to swarm the streets of the Indonesian capital demanding his ouster last year.

Purnama, an ethnic Chinese Christian, lost the election as he divided his time between campaigning and defending himself against blasphemy charges in court. He was later jailed for two years.

Kevin O’Rourke, a political analyst, said Amin was a “staunch conservative” and “adroit manipulator”.

“As VP, he can bolster Islamic groups and perhaps give some other religious conservative a chance to succeed Widodo,” he wrote.

Indonesia politics analyst Marcus Mietzner said Amin’s appointment could neuter attacks on Widodo’s alleged lack of religious conviction and elevate nationalist themes in the election campaign.

“(The Opposition) are probably going to shift their focus onto ultra-nationalist themes: sell-out to China, invasion of foreign workers, evil imports, predatory investors,” he told Reuters in emailed comments.

“These are classic Prabowo themes anyway, but they will become even more pronounced this time.”

Widodo and Prabowo contested the last presidential election in 2014. Widodo won but his popularity slumped mid-campaign after false reports were spread online that he was a Christian and an ethnic Chinese descendent.

After Friday prayers, Prabowo declared himself the candidate for the poor, touching on another central theme of his campaign: inequality.

“Our job as leaders is to eliminate people’s suffering so that nobody is hungry, naked or suffering … no matter what their religion is.”

“Our friends here are sometimes considered radicals, but believe me, there is no radical Islam in Indonesia,” added Prabowo, who has forged close ties with hardline Islamists.

‘DEPENDENT’

According to party officials from the president’s coalition, Widodo had favoured an alternative to Amin, former constitutional court chief justice Mahfud MD.

In a television interview, Mahfud said he was asked “in some detail” to prepare to be the running mate and was on standby to be anointed on Thursday.

Mahfud said it was Widodo’s decision to overlook him.

But, as quoted by the news portal Detik.com, NU board member Robikin Emhas said NU leaders, including Amin, told Widodo that they could not support Mahfud.

Mietzner said Widodo had initially discounted NU’s opposition to Mahfud.

“The implications are that four years into his presidency, Jokowi is still much more dependent on his supporting parties than he cares to admit. (It’s) a demonstration of his continued weakness,” he said, referring to Widodo by his nickname.

A presidential spokesman was not immediately available for comment.

A leader of NU-aligned National Awakening Party (PKB), Muhaimin Iskander, told reporters on Thursday it was a surprise Amin was selected and that Mahfud was Widodo’s initial preference.

“I thought Mahfud was chosen. But it turned out to be Ma’ruf Amin,” he said.

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Categories: Ahmadiyah, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, Blasphemy, Indonesia, Indonesian Ulema Council, Jakarta, Joko Widodo, Ma'ruf Amin, MUI, Nahdlatul Ulama, News, Politics, Prabowo Subianto, Sandiaga Uno

Far-right German leader sceptical of Bannon’s anti-EU push

August 13, 2018 Article

A leader of the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party has poured cold water on plans by Steve Bannon, U.S. President Donald Trump’s former political strategist, to forge a wide populist alliance to undermine the European Union.

“We’re not in America,” Alexander Gauland, one of two co-leaders of the anti-immigrant party, told the Funke Mediengruppe newspaper chain in an interview published on Saturday.

“The interests of the anti-establishment parties in Europe are quite divergent,” he added in comments that amounted to a blunt rebuff of Bannon from one of Europe’s most influential far-right parties.

The former Trump strategist last month announced he had created a Brussels-based political organization called The Movement to rally nationalist and populist voters in European Parliament elections next May, with a goal of undermining and paralysing the bloc.

But Gauland said that while his co-leader Alice Weidel had met once with Bannon, he saw no possibility of cooperating with him. “Mr Bannon will not succeed in forging an alliance of the like-minded for the European elections.”

He said the AfD only had close contacts with Austria’s far-right Freedom Party (FPO), junior party in Austria’s coalition government. Former AfD leader Frauke Petry had always wanted to work with France’s National Front, but that had not worked out.

Raheem Kassam, a spokesman for The Movement, said of Gauland’s comments: “The Movement is a clearing house of ideas, not a campaigning organisation that would seek to have anything to do with AFD’s national policy or election campaigns. We are content that senior AFD figures understand the project and are in touch with us every day. We look forward to working alongside those who want to do so, for the causes we all believe in.”

Gauland told Funke Mediengruppe that his party was polling at 17 to 20 percent in recent surveys, and its support could grow beyond that as long as Chancellor Angela Merkel remained in power.

The party won 12.6 percent of the vote in national elections last September, making it the third largest party and catapulting it into the German parliament for the first time.

Gauland said the AfD needed to become stronger, but he expected it to be ready to take on a governing role in the medium-term.

Political experts say the party could become the strongest party in the eastern German states of Saxony and Brandenburg in regional elections next year, raising the question of whether mainstream parties will reverse course and agree to form coalitions with it.

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Categories: AfD, Alexander Gauland, Alternative for Germany, anti-immigration, Germany, News, Populism, Raheem Kassam, Steve Bannon

Hundreds take to Charlottesville streets a year after far-right rally

August 13, 2018 Article

Hundreds of students and left-wing activists took to the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday, as a rally to mark the anniversary of last year’s white nationalist gathering turned largely into an anti-police protest.

With chants like, “Cops and Klan go hand in hand,” the protesters’ criticisms of both police and the University of Virginia underscored the resentment that still exists a year after torch-bearing neo-Nazis marched through campus, shouting anti-Semitic messages and beating counterprotesters.

Several students said they were angry that the police response was far larger this year compared with last year, when people carrying tiki torches the white nationalist rally went mostly unchecked.

At one point on Saturday, dozens of officers in riot gear formed a line near where the rally was taking place, prompting many protesters to rush over yelling, “Why are you in riot gear? We don’t see no riot here.”

The standoff ended without any clashes as organizers urged the crowd to move away and begin marching off campus. Police, who appeared to be avoiding a confrontation, rode bicycles ahead of the march to stop traffic.

The newly installed president of the University of Virginia, James Ryan, apologised for the school’s inaction last year while speaking at an event to memorialize the anniversary.

Saturday’s march capped a day of hope, grief, anger and remembrance in Charlottesville, one year after the “Unite the Right” rally brought racially charged street violence to the scenic college town.

The organizer of last year’s rally, local blogger Jason Kessler, has planned a sequel for Sunday in Washington after being denied a permit in Charlottesville.

With hundreds of police maintaining a tight security perimeter around a 15-block downtown area, Charlottesville’s normally bustling business district was relatively quiet on Saturday. The buzz of a police helicopter overhead was a constant throughout the day.

The massive police response was not welcomed by everyone, including some residents and business owners who complained that the restrictions were an overreaction.

The result, however, was a day largely devoid of conflict. Authorities arrested three men for minor offences, including a 64-year-old disabled man who appeared to deliberately challenge the prohibition on certain items in the secured area.

The man, John Miska, who was wearing a handgun in a shoulder holster, visited a drugstore and purchased razor blades, which qualified as contraband under the city’s emergency declaration. The gun, however, was not banned, based on state law.

When he refused an officer’s request to take the razors to his car, he was arrested for disorderly conduct.

“This is the loss of our constitutional rights here in Charlottesville,” he shouted, as officers led him away in plastic hand ties.

A group of anti-fascist protesters, sometimes known as “Antifa,” marched in the afternoon, carrying signs with messages like “Good Night White Pride.” They stopped to pay their respects at the corner where a local woman, Heather Heyer, was killed when an Ohio man drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters following last year’s rally.

While some businesses closed for the weekend, many merchants remained open in a show of solidarity.

“It’s my town, and I’m not afraid,” said Karen Walker, whose floral shop Hedge was open on Saturday even though she did not expect much business. Outside her front door, a bucket of freshly cut flowers was available for passersby to take for free.

Many local residents also made a point of coming downtown to mark the anniversary. Kathe Falzer, 67, changed a flight to California so she could spend Saturday in town.

“I felt the need to be here and support the businesses,” Falzer said as she ate lunch at a diner on Main Street.

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Categories: Charlottesville, News, rally, students, Unite the Right

Israel’s Arab minority rallies against new nation-state law

August 13, 2018 Article

Thousands of protesters rallied in Tel Aviv on Saturday against Israel’s new law declaring it the nation-state of the Jewish people, legislation that has angered the country’s Arab minority and drawn criticism abroad.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has defended the law, which says only Jews have the right of self-determination in the country and downgrades Arabic from an official language, saying it is necessary in order to fend off Palestinian challenges to Jewish self-determination.

The protesters, mostly Israeli Arabs, waved Palestinian flags and held up signs that read ‘equality’ in Arabic and Hebrew.

“The law legitimises racism,” said Laila al-Sana, 19, from a Bedouin village in Israel’s southern Negev desert. “It’s very important to show we are here, to resist,” she said.

Israel’s Arab population comprises mainly descendants of the Palestinians who remained on their land after the 1948 war at the time of the creation of the modern state of Israel. Hundreds of thousands were forced to leave their homes or fled.

Many of Israel’s Arab citizens also identify as Palestinian. They make up about a fifth of the state’s 9 million people. Israeli law grants them full equal rights, but many say they face discrimination and are treated as second-class citizens.

“When I heard about the law I felt I should defend my hometown, our land, the land of my ancestors,” said 68-year-old Sheikha Dabbah at the rally.

Largely declarative, the law was enacted just after the 70th anniversary of the birth of the state of Israel.

It stipulates that “Israel is the historic homeland of the Jewish people and they have an exclusive right to national self-determination in it”. It also downgrades Arabic from an official language alongside Hebrew to a “special status.”

“I feel ashamed that after 70 years I have to accentuate my nationalism instead of being generous towards all those who live here,” said Gila Zamir, 58, a Jewish Israeli from the Arab-Jewish city Haifa.

Netanyahu posted on his Twitter page a video from the demonstration of a few protesters waving the Palestinian flag and chanting: “With spirit, with blood we shall redeem you, Palestine” and wrote: “There is no better evidence of the nation-law’s necessity.” Separate TV footage showed a few Israeli flags being waved.

Critics have said the new law is undemocratic because it differentiates between Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Its defenders say civil equality is guaranteed in existing legislation.

Arab leaders in Israel have said the law verges on apartheid. Rights groups and Jewish groups in the Diaspora have spoken against the legislation, as have the EU, Egypt and Israel’s own president.

Last Saturday a protest against the law by Israel’s Druze community, which numbers about 120,000 citizens, drew a far larger crowd.

The Druze are ethnic Arab members of a religious minority that is an offshoot of Islam incorporating elements of other faiths.

Their outrage over the law has had more resonance in Israel, despite their small numbers, because of their reputation as loyal supporters of the state. Unlike the wider Arab population, many Druze serve in Israel’s conscript military and security forces, and some have risen high in the ranks.

Druze leaders have voiced a deep sense of betrayal over the law, striking a chord among many Israelis. However, efforts by Netanyahu to appease the Druze community have so far failed.

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Categories: Benjamin Netanyahu, Druze, Israel, Israeli Arabs, nation-state, News, Palestine, Tel Aviv

Hackers at convention test voting systems for bugs

August 13, 2018 Article

Def Con, one of the world’s largest security conventions, served as a laboratory for breaking into voting machines on Friday, extending its efforts to identify potential security flaws in technology that may be used in the November U.S. elections.

Hackers will continue to probe the systems over the weekend in a bid to discover new vulnerabilities, which could be turned over to voting machine makers to fix.

The three-day Las Vegas-based “Voting Village” also aimed to expose security issues in digital poll books and memory-card readers.

“We see a lot of value in doing things like this. We think it’s important,” said Jeanette Manfra, assistant secretary of cybersecurity and communications at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in an interview.

“The idea is, when we find things here, how do we connect them with the actual vendors and make sure that we are closing this loop back to a coordinated vulnerability disclosure process.”

Def Con held its first voting village last year after U.S. intelligence agencies concluded the Russian government used hacking in its attempt to support Donald Trump’s 2016 candidacy for president. Moscow has denied the allegations.

Organizers have returned ahead of the November elections, in which Democrats hope to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives. Trump’s national security team last week warned that Russia had launched “pervasive” efforts to interfere in the elections.

“These vulnerabilities that will be identified over the course of the next three days would, in an actual election, cause mass chaos,” said Jake Braun, one of the village’s organizers. “They need to be identified and addressed, regardless of the environment in which they are found.”

Participants will have a chance to hack into more than five types of voting machines from manufacturers including Elections Systems & Software and Dominion Voting.

Last year a Danish researcher figured out how to take control of a touchscreen voting system used through 2014 in a remote hack that organizers said could work from up to 1,000 feet away.

A group representing U.S. secretaries of state lauded the goal of bolstering election security, but warned that the findings might be skewed.

“It utilizes a pseudo environment which in no way replicates state election systems, networks or physical security,” the National Association of Secretaries of State said in a statement.

Verified Voting, an advocacy group that helped organise the hacking village, said that some of the voting machine models being tested are still used to tally votes across the United States.

One system, the Dominion Premier/Diebold AccuVote TSx system, is used in 20 states and 23,784 precincts, according to Verified Voting.

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Categories: cyber-security, cybersecurity, Def Con, Dominion Premier/Diebold AccuVote TSx system, Internet, News, U.S. Department of Homeland Security