No more talk of sharia: Amien

JAKARTA: People's Consultative Assembly Speaker Amien Rais said on Wednesday that the discussion about the implementation of sharia, or Islamic law, in the country was over.

He said the issue was settled when all political parties agreed not to include sharia in the amended 1945 Constitution.

Amien said the amended Constitution only stipulated that the state was based on one God.

There was a prolonged debate about sharia during the amendment process, but sharia supporters did not get the support they needed, he said after addressing a seminar titled Religion, Democracy and Minority Groups in Indonesia here Wednesday.

Amien said he believed the country's two largest Muslim organizations, Nadhlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, had no intention of pressing for the inclusion of sharia in the Constitution. --JP