SEMARANG'S CONFUCIANIST COMMUNITY MOURN GUS DUR

Semarang, Dec 31 (ANTARA) - With former president Abdurrahman Wahid's demise on Wednesday, Semarang city's Confucianist community feel they have lost a protector of their faith, a spokesman said.

Wahid who is otherwise also known as Gus Dur was the one who revoked a presidential instruction issued in 1967 which in effect outlawed Confucianism as a religious faith.

"For 32 years, we had been treated like step-children. But Gus Dur lifted us up from our predicament. He is someone we revere, we respect, we love. Now, he is no more," Teguh Chandra Irawan of
Semarang City's Confucianist Supreme Council, said.

Teguh made the statement after attending an inter-faith prayer service for Gus Dur at the Jesus Blessed Heart Church in the Tanah Nas area of Semarang City on Thursday.

Semarang's Confucianist community also held their own prayer service for Gus Dur at the Tai Kak Sie temple.

Since the revocation of the discriminatory presidential instruction of 1967, Cunfucianists were free again to perform their traditional dragon and lion dances in public, Teguh said.

"We could again hold our annual rituals at our temples," he said.

Gus Dur, Teguh said, was a leader who treated all ethnic groups and religions, including Confucianism, equally and his demise was a great loss to the Cofucianist community.

On the same occasion, Aloysius Budi Purnomo of the Semarang Arhbishopric, said Gus Dur had brought blessings not only for the Moslem community but also for religious minorities.

"Gus Dur was a irreplaceable figure not only in Indonesia but in the world," he said.