BATAM, Riau: The Muslim community here has been warned about

BATAM, Riau: The Muslim community here has been warned about restaurants that claim to serve halal (allowed by Islamic law) food but do not have a halal certificate from the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI).

"We must be cautious about halal labels in restaurants that do not have a certificate from the food survey department of the MUI," the chairman of the Batam Muslim Consumers Foundation, Imbalo Iman Sakti, said here on Tuesday.

Imbalo cited several restaurants that claimed to serve halal food but did not have a certificate.

He said such restaurants only used the halal label to attract customers.

Since the beginning of the fasting month, he said, many restaurants had put up halal labels on their doors, hoping to attract more Muslim diners.

Imbalo said many of these restaurants belonged to non-Muslims, who added pork, alcohol and others ingredients to the food they served to make it more appetizing.

He said the restaurant owners were aware that the ingredients they used could not be eaten by Muslims, yet they still put up halal labels in their restaurants. -- Antara