It was reported on Bali Post, Sunday (16/12) that Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, the leader of Jamaah Islamiah (JI), visited the three sentenced of the 1st Bali Bomb Blast Case; Amrozy, Mukhlas, and Imam Samudra in Nusa Kambangan prison.

He stated that the verdict was mistaken due to the death sentence to those three persons. He considers that Amrozy and his friends are not terrorists but they are contra-terrorist.

Ba’asyir also stated that actually those people who are in jail was only trying to defend the Muslims but unfortunately they used wrong ways and for expiating their sin they are doing two months fast (kifarat) currently since there was innocent people killed on 1st Bali Bomb Blast incident. And his last statement that sounds like a threat was there will be a big disturbance/danger if those three sentenced are sent to death because they are mujahid (fighter).

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It is not only Muslims and non-Balinese who are visibly excluded or even threatened by this discourse. It also affects Balinese Hindus who do not practise the appropriate Hinduism as portrayed in the Bali Post and as taught by the televangelist Hindu priests on Bali TV. This form of Hinduism is supported by the PHDI (Indonesian Hindu Council). Ajeg Bali is part of a larger movement to sanitise, standardise and explain Balinese Hinduism. Thus Bali TV will often have programs explaining how offerings should be made and how rituals should be performed. There are also community and city-wide youth praying competitions, enforcing ideas of stylised praying and how a Balinese should and should not communicate with God.

In addition to the standardisation of praying styles and ritual activity, ceremonial clothing has also become more uniform. Today, it is the norm to wear white for most ceremonies and black for cremation, whereas ten to 15 years ago ceremonial clothing was much more varied in colour. The Western colours of purity and grief have been appropriated by the PHDI, Bali TV and other ajeg Bali proponents and promoted as a form of standardising ritual and pakaian adat.

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A journalist in Bali was detained Wednesday by Jembrana regency public order officers after she was involved in a disagreement with the regent.

The incident between Luh Ari Sri Lestari and Regent I Gde Winasa took place around 12:30 p.m. at a sports stadium in the regency capital Negara, some 90 kilometers west of Denpasar.

“I asked him a few questions and suddenly he got angry, accusing my paper and media group of being the island’s provocateur,” Ari said.

Ari is a junior correspondent with The Bali Post, the island’s largest daily newspaper. The paper belongs to the Kelompok Media Bali Post (KMB) company, which also controls four other local newspapers, a network of radio stations and the influential Bali TV station.

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