REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Some Islamic mass organizations have denounced the Jakarta provincial government's plan to raise land and building tax threefold.
"Where will the people who cannot afford to pay the tax will live?" secretary general of the Muslim Forum (FUI) Muhammad Al Khaththath said here on Friday.
If the plan is approved the city dwellers who cannot afford to pay the tax will move to outside Jakarta, he said in his oration.
He learned the plan during a meeting between representatives of Islamic mass organizations and members of factions in the Jakarta legislative council to convey their aspirations.
The FUI also objected to Jakarta Deputy Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok)'s decision to ban Muslims from holding mass religious gatherings in open places in the capital.
"We hope all elements to join us in struggling for the interests of low-income people by rejecting the inauguration of (Ahok) as (Jakarta governor)," he said.
Orator Jafar Shodiq said the FUI would organize a rally at the DPRD building every Friday.
"We will come here again until our demand is fulfilled," he said.
Under the law, Ahok will automatically replace Jakarta governor Joko Widodo who is the president-elect when the latter assumes the presidency of Indonesia.