Indonesia: Muslim civil servants obliged to read Koran.
The city council in Gorantalo, central Indonesia, has ordered its Muslim civil servants to read the Koran – Islam’s holy book – every Friday. Gorontalo mayor Adhan Dambea said Saturday that he was not yet satisfied with the implementation of his instructions.
“Some civil servants are still unable to read the Koran fluently,” he said. Dambea said his administration would provide religious teachers to improve the civil servants’ ability to read the Koran.
However, he promised that public service would not be affected by the new Koran reading activity in his administration.
Elsewhere, In Italy: ‘No to teaching of Islam in schools’, says minister.
Italy’s interior minister Roberto Maroni from the anti-immigrant Northern League party said he would not back a proposal to teach Islam in Italian schools to improve integration.
“The Northern League is absolutely against the proposal of an hour of Islamic religion in Italian schools,” Maroni told the commericial TV programme Mattino 5.
The proposal was put forward by the deputy minister of economic development Adolfo Urso.
“While the hour of Catholic religion represents an entity, the Church, which has a hierarchy and contains clear, well defined values that can be conveyed, Islam on the other hand is a completely different case,” Maroni said.
“The imam can freely interpret the Koran, there is not a series of tenets, there is not a clear message to convey…If the proposal served to improve integration, we would be all in agreement, but this is clearly the wrong way to do it,” Maroni.
