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Orphanage plan angers Muslims
On the other hand, everything angers Moose limbs...
A HIGH profile Australian charity headed by a Catholic priest today backed away from plans to set up an orphanage in tsunami-shattered Aceh after the plan enraged hardline Muslim groups. Youth Off The Streets founder Father Chris Riley arrived in the provincial capital Banda Aceh last night with plans to set up a tent orphanage to house some of the estimated 35,000 Acehnese children with dead or missing parents. The plan was backed with a $100,000 donation from NSW clubs and media mogul Kerry Packer's Channel 9 funded Riley's trip.

But after the chief of the radical Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), Hilmy Bakar Almascaty warned Youth off the Streets to stick purely to humanitarian work, Father Riley said the orphanage plan had only ever been a last resort. If there were too many sensitivities involved, he was happy to drop the plan or funnel support into an Indonesian organisation, he said. "Youth off the Streets has no religious basis at all," he said. "It is Christian I guess, but we've got Muslims in our services in Sydney. There is never any conflict there. I'm not going to force myself into a community like this and if they've got things in hand, so be it. We are going to look. If it means we look elsewhere or go back to Australia, I don't have any problem with that at all. It's predominantly Muslim so you accept that. We're not going to fight that."

The issue is sensitive in Aceh, which is the only Indonesian province to have fully implemented Islamic sharia law and said to be the veranda of the holy city Mecca. Radical and mainstream Muslim organisations have warned against encroachment by other religions in the province and the Indonesian government last week barred orphan children from leaving the region to preserve Aceh's culture and future.
Posted by: tipper 2005-01-08
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=53140