Indonesia executes six drug convicts, five of them foreigners

Indonesia executes six drug convicts, five of them foreigners
Widodo has pledged to bring reform to Indonesia

Ban appeals to Indonesia to stop death row executions

Ban appeals to Indonesia to stop death row executions
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has pleaded to Indonesia to stop the execution of prisoners on death row for drug crimes. AFP PHOTO

Pope: 'Death penalty represents failure' – no 'humane' way to kill a person

Pope: 'Death penalty represents failure' – no 'humane' way to kill a person
The pope wrote that the principle of legitimate personal defense isn’t adequate justification to execute someone. Photograph: Zuma/Rex

Obama becomes first president to visit US prison (US Justice Systems / Human Rights)

Obama becomes first president to visit US prison   (US Justice Systems / Human Rights)
US President Barack Obama speaks as he tours the El Reno Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma, July 16, 2015 (AFP Photo/Saul Loeb)

US Death Penalty (Justice Systems / Human Rights)

US Death Penalty (Justice Systems / Human Rights)
Woman who spent 23 years on US death row cleared (Photo: dpa)



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"The Recalibration of Awareness – Apr 20/21, 2012 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Old Energy, Recalibration Lectures, God / Creator, Religions/Spiritual systems (Catholic Church, Priests/Nun’s, Worship, John Paul Pope, Women in the Church otherwise church will go, Current Pope won’t do it), Middle East, Jews, Governments will change (Internet, Media, Democracies, Dictators, North Korea, Nations voted at once), Integrity (Businesses, Tobacco Companies, Bankers/ Financial Institutes, Pharmaceutical company to collapse), Illuminati (Started in Greece, with Shipping, Financial markets, Stock markets, Pharmaceutical money (fund to build Africa, to develop)), Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Women, Masters to/already come back, Global Unity.... etc.) - (Text version)

… The Shift in Human Nature

You're starting to see integrity change. Awareness recalibrates integrity, and the Human Being who would sit there and take advantage of another Human Being in an old energy would never do it in a new energy. The reason? It will become intuitive, so this is a shift in Human Nature as well, for in the past you have assumed that people take advantage of people first and integrity comes later. That's just ordinary Human nature.

In the past, Human nature expressed within governments worked like this: If you were stronger than the other one, you simply conquered them. If you were strong, it was an invitation to conquer. If you were weak, it was an invitation to be conquered. No one even thought about it. It was the way of things. The bigger you could have your armies, the better they would do when you sent them out to conquer. That's not how you think today. Did you notice?

Any country that thinks this way today will not survive, for humanity has discovered that the world goes far better by putting things together instead of tearing them apart. The new energy puts the weak and strong together in ways that make sense and that have integrity. Take a look at what happened to some of the businesses in this great land (USA). Up to 30 years ago, when you started realizing some of them didn't have integrity, you eliminated them. What happened to the tobacco companies when you realized they were knowingly addicting your children? Today, they still sell their products to less-aware countries, but that will also change.

What did you do a few years ago when you realized that your bankers were actually selling you homes that they knew you couldn't pay for later? They were walking away, smiling greedily, not thinking about the heartbreak that was to follow when a life's dream would be lost. Dear American, you are in a recession. However, this is like when you prune a tree and cut back the branches. When the tree grows back, you've got control and the branches will grow bigger and stronger than they were before, without the greed factor. Then, if you don't like the way it grows back, you'll prune it again! I tell you this because awareness is now in control of big money. It's right before your eyes, what you're doing. But fear often rules. …

Wednesday, March 6, 2019

Jews live in the shadows in Muslim-majority Indonesia

Yahoo – AFP, Peter Brieger in Jakarta and Ronny Buol in Tondano, 5 March 2019

Most members of the tiny Jewish community in Muslim-majority Indonesia
keep their identity under wraps

Yaakov Baruch is the rabbi at Indonesia's only synagogue but he keeps his religious identity under wraps, like most of the tiny Jewish community living in the world's biggest Muslim-majority nation.

A group of men threatened Baruch with death and called him a "crazy Jew" as he walked in a mall with his pregnant wife several years ago, prompting him to limit when he wears his kippah -- a Jewish skullcap.

"It's never happened again because I chose to hide my identity as a Jew in public," he said.

There is a similar ripple of concern among many of the estimated 200 Jews living in the Southeast Asian country of 260 million people, with most centred in a remote corner of the sprawling archipelago.

Manado on Sulawesi island is one of the few places that Indonesia's remaining Jews -- mostly descendants of traders from Europe and Iraq who were once thought to number around several thousand before World War II -- feel comfortable showing their faith.

A 62-foot-tall menorah, possibly the world's largest, stands near the town of Tondano -- around 20 kilometres (13 miles) south of Manado -- where Baruch holds regular services at a modest, red-roofed synagogue.

Indonesia's remaining Jews are mostly descendents of traders from Europe and
Iraq who were once thought to number around several thousand before World War II

'The enemy'

The Shaar Hasyamayim synagogue is Indonesia's lone house of worship for Jews after the only other one in the city of Surabaya was demolished in 2013.

It had been the site of anti-Israel protests for years, and was sealed off by religious hardliners in 2009 and left to decay.

Indonesia has long been praised for its moderate brand of Islam, but more conservative forms of the religion have taken centre stage in recent years, driven by increasingly vocal hardline groups.

Tensions in the Middle East, particularly between Israel and the Palestinians, spill over here and deepen religious divides.

Thousands of hardliners demonstrated in Jakarta when US President Donald Trump announced last year that the American embassy in Israel would be moved to the contested city of Jerusalem.

"There is still a lot of anti-semitic sentiment in Indonesia," Baruch said.

"Generally speaking, Indonesians don't differentiate between being Jewish and Israel. They think Jews and Israel are the enemy of their religion and state," he added.

"There is no denying that tolerance is fading in our country."

The size of the Jewish community makes it almost invisible so Jews have not 
been the target of Islamist militants like some of Indonesia's larger religious minorities

The size of the Jewish community makes it almost invisible so Jews have not been the target of Islamist militants like some of Indonesia's larger religious minorities.

A wave of deadly suicide bombings at churches in Surabaya last year highlighted the threat to minority groups, while Shiites and Ahmadis -- regarded as heretics by some majority Sunni Muslims -- have also been the target of violence.

Kosher food shortage

Still, Indonesia's Jews are on the radar of some groups.

Monique Rijkers' efforts to bridge the divide with a TV programme about Judaism drew the ire of the Indonesian Muslim Students Association, which she claims reported her to government and broadcast regulators.

"They demanded that I be fired and that the programme be cancelled," said Rijkers, founder of Hadassah of Indonesia, a non-profit organisation that offers cultural education programmes centred on Israel, Jews and the Holocaust.

Indonesia's Jews face some practical challenges, too, such as finding kosher food in a country where it's not widely available.

Another hurdle is that Indonesia has long allowed for only six different religious categories on all-important ID cards -- Islam, Protestantism, Catholicism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Confucianism.

Indonesia's Jews face some practical challenges, too, such as finding kosher 
food in a country where it's not widely available

The cards are crucial for accessing government services, and for doing things such as registering marriages and births, meaning most Jews lie and put "Christianity" on the documents.

Even some Muslim Indonesians learn that taking an interest in anything Jewish can raise eyebrows.

Sapri Sale, who started teaching a Hebrew class in Jakarta a year ago, has been studying the language since the 1990s and compiled what he says is the world's first Hebrew-Indonesian dictionary.

But his interests got little positive feedback at home.

"I was called Sapri the Jew," he said.

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