Thousands of Indonesian Muslims on Sunday staged peaceful rallies in cities across the country to protest US President Barack Obama's visit later this month. Around 2,000 protesters from the hard-line Muslim group Hizbut Tahrir, which aims to establish a Muslim caliphate, shouted "Islam united... will not be defeated. Reject Obama" and tore printouts of the American flag as they marched around the South Sulawesi capital of Makassar.
In Central Java's Solo city, another 500 of the group's supporters carried posters saying "Expel Obama.. leader of coloniser" and "America.. The Real Terrorists".
"There are two types of visitors, good and bad. Obama is bad. He might be of a different skin colour from George Bush, but he still oppressed the Muslims," the group's spokesman Nur Alam said, referring to former US president George W. Bush.