Different accounts given to UN about violence in Thailand’s deep South

There are stark differences between a government report on violence in the deep South and reports submitted by non-government groups for the first-ever Universal Periodic Review (UPR) that Thailand will face, at the United Nations' Human Rights Council in Geneva tomorrow.

The review will touch on 15 major issues related to human rights in Thailand over the past four years - a process that occurs once every four years for each and every UN member state.

The Thai government report, while stating that justice is an important issue in the three southernmost provinces, fails to explicitly mention violence committed by soldiers and security officers in the area. The latter have impunity from prosecution for acts that might otherwise be deemed illegal.

But a report submitted separately by the Civil Society Coalition and People's Empowerment Foundation noted that perpetrators in the conflict were both separatists and state officials.

"Root causes of the conflict result from different perspectives held by the government and insurgents," the NGOs' report stated. "Military policy has failed to respect the distinct identity of Malayu-Muslim people from the rest of the Thai population, treating them as terrorists that ought to be controlled by the Thai state."

Problems listed in their report include torture and the use of special laws to limit human rights, including the rights of women and children.

Another report, submitted by the Civil Society and Human Rights Coalition of Thailand (CHRC), noted that "human rights policy was not taken seriously in the deep South while the recommendation from the National Reconciliation Commission [NRC] led by former Prime Minister Anand Panyarachun was not well accepted and implemented."
The government's report recommended that further efforts be made to improve the justice process so as to address the problem of impunity and bring justice to all concerned.

"Promoting movement toward ending the use of special laws in the area and to focus on using civilian means to address the problem," was also needed, the government said.

Recommendations by the Civil Society Coalition and People's Empowerment Foundation included adapting laws to prohibit and prevent torture and other ill-treatment, establishing a fact-finding committee made up of people from different sectors that could release a transparent report to the public and release all suspects not able to be prosecuted because of insufficient evidence against them. They also called for compensation for suspects who had been wrongly detained.

Some human rights activists plan to watch the live Internet-broadcast of the rights debate on Thailand from Geneva. It starts at 7pm (Bangkok time) at The Reading room, a private library and meeting place in Silom, and will be open to the public. Pravit Rojanaphruk
The Nation

Double trouble: Indonesia Bankrolling and broadcasting terror

Indonesian companies and financial institutions are poised to help Iran sidestep international sanctions by setting up a joint bank to facilitate billions of dollars of annual trade between the two countries.

In addition, the Indonesian government is allowing its national satellite company to broadcast one of the world’s most vitriolic television stations, al-Manar, which is owned by Hizbullah, a recognized terrorist organization sponsored financially and operationally by Iran.

While the Indonesian government clearly feels it is in its interest to expand business relations with Iran, this would facilitate Iran’s march toward nuclearization.

Furthermore, by failing to take a strong stance against Iran and Hizbullah, and in particular, al-Manar, Indonesia is allowing a rogue regime and its proxy to proliferate terrorism and radicalize Muslims around the world, including in Indonesia.

According to the international press, Jakarta and Tehran have been trying to find a way to conduct business for some time, as sanctions levied by the United States, Europe, and the United Nations have made it difficult for Iran to move its funds internationally.

On Sept. 19, Indonesia’s chargé d’affaires in Tehran, Aji Setiawan, announced plans by both countries to establish a private bank to facilitate trade and commerce.

“The trade exchange between Iran and Indonesia can [be] enhance[d] by removing the impediments,” Setiawan stated.

A number of Indonesian officials have also called for an increase in the US$1.29 billion in trade between the two countries, which revolves mostly around the energy sector.

In recent years, Iran and Indonesia have increased their bilateral trade in products including butane, propane, oil waxes, ethylene, petrochemical products, ammonium nitrate, paper and cardboard, pipes, synthetic yarn, and steel wire.
Indonesia, which has numerous choices of trading partners, should seriously reconsider its relationship with Iran for several reasons.

As its name suggests, the Islamic Republic of Iran endorses a radical form of religion that is at odds with the more moderate form of Islam prevalent in Indonesia.

Iran was founded upon a strict interpretation of sharia, and it provides financial support to terrorist organizations around the globe.

The ideology driving Iran and its proxies is not dissimilar to the belief system of the al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists who perpetrated the heinous attacks in Jakarta in 2003 and 2009, killing hundreds of Muslims.

In addition, Iran’s human rights record is unspeakable. Iranian citizens, international organizations, activists, NGOs, and the UN have all criticized the Iranian regime, which regularly engages in torture, rape, and killing of civilians, dissidents, and political prisoners.

According to Human Rights Watch, under President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran’s human rights record has “deteriorated markedly”.

This reconsideration of relations with Iran should also focus on al-Manar.

In April 2008, Indonesia allowed its national satellite company, Palapa, to start broadcasting the Hizballah TV station, which is reportedly viewed by an estimated 10-15 million people a day across the globe, and is largely funded by Iran.

Its mission was explained to me with chilling clarity by one al-Manar official: It is meant to “help people on the way to committing what you call in the West a suicide mission. [Its programs] are meant to be the first step in the process of a freedom fighter operation.”

Put differently, a good portion of its programming unabashedly aims to recruit terrorists and brainwash young children.

Viewers are told that “the path to becoming a priest in Islam is through jihad”, and they are implored to focus on the rewards of martyrdom — in the afterlife and on judgment day.

Mothers are encouraged to give up their sons, to prepare them “for battle knowing that their blood will mix with the soil”.

For their part, the United States and European Union have banned the station from operating on their soil and do not allow companies in their jurisdiction to do business with al-Manar.

Twelve satellite providers in Australia, Brazil, Barbados, France, Holland, Spain, and the United States, decided — in some cases even before the ban itself — that it was contrary to laws or basic decency to broadcast al-Manar, and they pulled the plug.

The only countries that still broadcast the station via satellite are Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia. By failing to take a stand against al-Manar, the Indonesian government is allowing the next generation of Indonesians and other Muslims throughout Asia to be brainwashed.

It is time that Indonesia stopped facilitating Iran’s nuclearization and the dissemination of its terrorist
ideology via al-Manar.

The government and people of Indonesia should take a strong stand against Iran as long as it continues its efforts to obtain a nuclear bomb, oppress its people, proliferate terrorism, and sponsor TV programming that incites violence.

Not to do so is a betrayal of the Indonesian interpretation of Islam, along with the values and ideals
that all free nations everywhere hold dear.

By Avi Jorisch, Washington, DC former US Treasury official, founder of the Red Cell Intelligence Group, a Washington DC-based national security firm, and the author of Beacon of Hatred: Inside Hizballah’s al-Manar Television

Hong Kong's Irrational Election Process

Chinese-style democracy at work










On July 1 next year, Hong Kong’s third chief executive since the handover in 1997 will take office. Beijing has decreed that it could be the bland Henry Tang or the earnest CY Leung. No other candidates need apply.

The right to choose Hong Kong’s next leader is confined to a 1,200-member college of electors which will be in place by December. They represent 0.01 percent of the population. Each 'constituency' is assigned a fixed number of block votes. Any candidate wishing to be considered must collect a minimum of 100 nominations.

It is a rubber-stamp assembly to legitimize Beijing's nominee, very much in the mould of politics on the mainland. The 1,200 electors strain keenly for smoke signals from Beijing on whom to vote for. They would rather not back the wrong horse.

Some members of the pro-democracy camp supported this 'reform' on the understanding that it will be totally abolished by 2017 in favor of universal suffrage. No one is sure if the Election Committee will be disbanded next round as there are mixed signals from the administration and silence from Beijing. Beijing has been at pains even before 1997 to assure Hong Kong's businessmen that no change will be made to its pro-business policies.

The 1,200 member election committee aggregates chambers of commerce, New Territories villagers, professional bodies, pro-Beijing organizations (NPC deputies, CPPCC members) and other narrow-interest groups. Many are known in Hong Kong as 'rotten boroughs' created for the purpose of stacking the deck. They have limited self-interest agendas and are easily shown whom to vote for.

The approval of two candidates by Beijing is a new one. Beijing may eventually wish to harness both in some form, while it gauges both the small-circle and public support for the candidates.

Citizens locked out

Hong Kong's 7 million residents are out of the loop. They have to watch in bewilderment as this 'Theater of the Absurd' plays out over the next nine months. But in a free election, it is unlikely that either of Beijing’s picks would have a chance.

The term of the first chief executive, the hapless Tung Chee-hwa, was curtailed for failing to push through the infamous Article 23 Security Bill. Some 500-700,000 Hong Kong residents poured out on July 1, 2003 to march peacefully against the bill. Tung was shell-shocked and his masters in Beijing even more so.

Hong Kong citizens face unaffordable housing, rising inflation, confusion about Cantonese versus English-medium schooling, a depreciating currency that is pegged to the US dollar and policy-paralysis in government. They despair over the administration's seeming unwillingness to use its massive foreign reserves and healthy fiscal surplus to address systemic, long-term social problems.

Instead the administration is pushing to spend billions on a joint bridge infrastructure project with Guangdong and to add a third runway to Hong Kong International Airport, amidst expert misgivings about the need for or commercial viability of these schemes. This lopsided prioritization reinforces the long-held suspicion of collusion between property developers and bureaucrats, to the detriment of ordinary people.

Hong Kong is a city suffering from prolonged absence of political leadership and a coherent program. People are weary, impatient and losing faith fast.

Henry Tang waits to be appointed

Henry Tang Ying-yen is a classic silver-spoon scion. His father, Tang Hsiang Chien, escaped to Hong Kong from China in 1950 in the aftermath of the 1949 Communist victory and made his fortune as a textile trader.

HC Tang was subsequently nominated to the standing committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the advisory body to the nation's legislature, the National People's Congress. Henry's 'red' family credentials are thus well established.

The Beijing leadership has been grooming Henry steadily through the senior ranks for 10 years. He was initiated into the Tung Chee-hwa administration in July 2002 as Secretary for Commerce, Industry & Technology, then replaced Antony Leung as Finance Secretary in August 2003 when Leung had to resign for purchasing a Mercedes-Benz days before he himself announced a tax increase on cars. Henry moved into the chief secretary's position in 2007.

Henry is best known for his impressive cellar of premium Bordeaux and Burgundy wines. His outstanding contribution as financial secretary was to remove the tax on wine. That won him the gratitude of wine consumers, merchants and importers. The 2008 abolition catapulted Hong Kong beyond London and New York to become the premier wine auction capital of the world. In 2007 the value of wine imported into Hong Kong was US$185 million. In 2010 wine imports soared to US$858 million - much of that destined for the mainland. As with art auctions, it is the gush of mainland cash driving the wine auction market. Cynics label this as money laundering with prestige attached.

Given his privileged upbringing, love of fine wine and the lifestyle it connotes, Henry is an affable sort who never needed to cloak-and-dagger his way to the top. He treats his associates and subordinates with courtesy and has an easy, relaxed style. The civil service is very comfortable with him. He is very much hands-off and lets the bureaucrats get on with their duties.

Awkward in public and unable to coherently address unscripted Q&A, Henry comes across as not having his fingers on the pulse of the society he may be called to lead. Business tycoons are most comfortable with him.

CY Leung wants the job, has an agenda

The civil service is wary and nervous of Leung Chun-ying. He is the kind of driven boss they dread. Life would not be comfortable for clock-watchers and time-servers under a CY Leung regime.

Leung is the son of a policeman. He obtained a diploma in surveying at Hong Kong Polytechnic, then went on to Bristol Poly to complete a BA in Real Estate Management. When he returned, he joined Jones Lang Wootton (Now Jones Lang LaSalle) in 1977. Within five years Leung was chairman of its Hong Kong branch, reportedly earning HK$10 million annually. He was admired in local circles as the "Emperor of the Working Class".

He was a former chairman of the local branch of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors and president of the HK Institute of Surveyors. He has chaired the councils of Lingnan and City Universities. He served as advisor on land reform to Shenzen, Tianjin and Shanghai municipalities. He is international economic advisor for Hebei province.

Leung's credentials as a competent real estate strategist, leader and organizer, propelled him into the sights of the Communist Party looking for talent in Hong Kong. He was the 'Convenor' of the Unofficial members of the Executive Council (the cabinet) till he resigned in September to stand for chief executive. Donald Tsang has retained him to help shape his final Policy Address.

CY is best remembered for supporting CH Tung in his 1997 plan to build 85,000 new flats to increase affordable housing stock so that at least 70 percent of Hong Kong residents would be able to afford homes over 10 years. The Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) planned to sell public housing to means-qualified residents at 30-40 percent below market prices.

In 2003 the HOS scheme was mothballed. Private developers are not supportive of an increased stock of public housing. They are not interested in 70 percent of the population (nearly 5 million) having access to flats below market prices.

Two candidates. One almost disinterested.

CY Leung is actively meeting community groups across Hong Kong. He seems to have an appreciation for the plight of the under-class and the widening rich-poor gap. Ordinary people can relate to him. He reaches out. He listens. He takes notes.

Henry is taking the position of an heir waiting to be crowned. He is not going down to interact with society, declare his agenda, solicit support or do any more than wait to be confirmed by Beijing. Leung is the outsider who must generate a wave of popular hope. He badly wants to become the next CE and claims to have an agenda to get HK moving again.

Given the last 15 years of coasting, Hong Kong needs bold measures to re-ignite its dynamism. It must deploy its wealth sensibly to make life bearable for the poor and sandwich classes.

Between the two candidates, CY Leung deserves to be given a chance to show what he can do for Hong Kong. However, given Beijing's ear for the business lobby and paranoic fear of 'instability', it may opt for the status-quo. The minders are sure of Henry. They are not too sure of CY. He thinks too deeply and hath a mean and hungry look. Asia Sentinel

What’s Mandarin for “prevaricate”?

THE Common Room is more confused than usual and that sadly says something! It does not feel like 1991, there are no














or blokes with








on their ties (I don’t wear it but I still have it!).











The music on the radio is different, still bad, but different and Hawthorn and Penrith are not celebrating grand final wins.

But otherwise it could be 20 years back, with Labor ministers banging on about Asia and how Australia must get to know the neighbours. Then it was Paul Keating today it is Julia Gillard who has announced a white paper to explain Asia to us.

Plus ca change.

It’s not that nothing changed in our level of interest in Asia over the last 20 years– things got worse. Then just about everybody accepted that kids should learn another language and it should be an Asian one. Universities were gearing up to teach students as they came through from school and were embracing Asia, not just as a source of fee-paying students but as a new research frontier.

Monash established a joint venture campus in Malaysia and badged itself as “Australia’s international university” - and everybody understood ‘international’ meant Asia.

Just about every institution which realised that the feds were never going to pay enough to educate an EFT followed.

Even the army got into the act – a least according to one (albeit unsourced) explanation of why the Australians came to lead the UN peacekeeping operation in Cambodia, starting in ‘92.

The French, or so the story goes, said they should lead, what with the way their former Cambodian colonials were full-on francophones. The Australians replied that we had many more soldiers who spoke Khmer.

So where are we now?

About where we were then, talking about teaching Asian languages but not actually instructing anybody much in them. Long time campaigner for language education Joseph Lo Bianco counts some 67 reports on language teaching in Australia in the last 20 years, which is ten times the number of university students taking Thai.

According to research by the Asia Education Foundation , the number of school students studying the four designated priority Asian languages, Chinese, Indonesian, Japanese and Korean, declined from nearly 800,000 to just over 600,000 between 2000 and 2008. While Year 12 enrolments stayed stable at 10,000 students a year this is not especially good news for any of the four.

Chinese, the growth language, is being taught at Year 12 level to ethnically Chinese students, by Chinese speakers who teach in, what a surprise, Chinese.

The same applies to Indonesian. The AEF says 190,000 students are studying Indonesian, the vast majority as a second language, but only 1600 of them are in the senior high school years and Indonesian is contracting into primary school.

Japanese used to be the go, being the most widely taught language in schools and universities at the turn of the century, but enrolments are down 16 per cent since then. Just 5000 took it in Y12 across the country in 2008.

Why the decline? The AEF speculates “under-trained teachers with insufficient linguistic competence,” might have something to do with it. But the fact that it takes so much time to learn can’t help. As the Common Room (in a different incarnation) warned 20 years ago (yes I am that old) after three years of university study most people struggle to read a Japanese newspaper.

As for Korean – it isn’t even in the top 10 foreign languages Australians study at school.

And as for supposedly insignificant tongues like Thai, why bother with a nation of 66 million which we have a free trade treaty with (the Common Room guesses it was negotiated in English)?

But wait, there’s more – and it’s worse! With the schools not producing potential students Asian languages are not strong in universities either. According to Anne McLaren’s report

for the Asian Studies Association of Australia, released in February, the need to promote Asian languages in Australian universities, “is more urgent than ever.”

Too right.

According to Professor McLaren, Mandarin is booming, but this is due to international students and heritage-background enrolments. Of course a speaker is a speaker is speaker and with university enrolments up by 35 per cent in the last 10 years we are not going to be short of iron ore negotiators. But as McLaren points out, if the trend continues, she warns, “Chinese risks becoming perceived as a ‘ghetto’ language.”

But at least it is expanding, which Indonesian enrolments aren’t. They are down by a third across the university system. In Brisbane U of Q, QUT and Griffith are cooperating to keep Indonesia (and Korean) alive.

Japanese is doing well, in the sense that it is only down by 9 per cent although the Common Room wonders how many students will want to learn to speak the language of an economy which has gone from boom to basket case in the last 20 years.

And Korean was up by 30 per cent from 2001 to 2009 but off a very low base (there were 136 EFTS in 2009). The Common Room’s colleague Bernard Lane says this is due to the boom in K-pop among the young (I’m taking his word for it.)

But as for Thai, it is only taught at ANU, to eight students in 2009!

There are enough problems here for a White Paper on languages alone. Asian languages are hard to learn, not as hip as the current fave – Spanish, and it seems
students just can’t be fagged.
This is very bad for Australia. For a start common courtesy dictates that we try to understand the neighbours. And in any negotiation, be it commercial, diplomatic or military the side that can understand what the opposition is saying to itself has a big advantage.

As Lo Bianco puts it, “Asian languages demand central attention because of past neglect and for present and future economic, strategic and cultural reasons. But none of these will translate into desperately needed good education programs unless our policies devote more time to discussing serious quality issues, practical constraints and achievable targets.”

Looks like a call to action to me –trouble is he wrote it in The Australian in 1996.
I wonder how to say “plus ca change” in Korean?

Stephen Matchett for The Australian

Afghanistan 10 years on

Five Myths About Social Media

The ever-expanding universe of social-media technologies - including video-sharing, mobile phones, and networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter that allow individuals to share and connect - is as ubiquitous as it is misunderstood. Apostles hail its power to oust dictators and bring us together; skeptics worry that it homogenizes our thinking and trivializes our relationships. Let's separate fact from fiction.

1. Social media gives power to the people.

More than 5 billion people are connected via mobile phones, 2 billion are on the Internet, and Facebook boasts some 750 million users. With such wide reach, it's easy to assume that communications technologies are great equalizers, increasing the political and economic power of the least well-off.

Certainly, there are examples of new technologies helping the less fortunate. Kenyan farmers and Indian fishermen have used phone applications to bypass corrupt middlemen and get real-time prices for their goods. Anecdotes abound of bloggers documenting human rights abuses, activists communicating via social media during the Arab Spring and indigenous people in Mexico using online newsgroups to promote their struggle for sovereignty. Even the current "Occupy Wall Street" effort was organized via social media.

But to best take advantage of a technology, people need dependable physical infrastructure and human capital - including electricity, education and media literacy. This is true even in the United States. For example, as a faculty member at UCLA, I have worked to develop a digital museum representing objects from the indigenous Zuni people of New Mexico in a way that respects their culture. Our research team found that designing the online system based on standard museum-style descriptions was alienating to the Zuni and that we needed to listen to their ways of describing the world, through storytelling and community rituals. If technologies are designed in isolation from the cultures they seek to connect, people's real voices will not be heard.

2. Governments easily monitor and censor social media.

The Internet is much harder to police than capital-intensive media such as television, newspapers and radio. With these older media, intelligence authorities can more easily detect broadcast or printing locations. It's not as simple to monitor a digital environment where anyone with a laptop, bandwidth and the requisite education can create his or her own media network by blogging, tweeting or streaming.

In 2006, my colleague Adam Fish and I were working in Kyrgyzstan, which maintained a Soviet-style approach toward policing media outlets and phone communications. We were surprised to learn that, partly because of the country's need for foreign aid, authorities had agreed to relax Internet regulation in exchange for assistance. We also learned how hard it was to monitor Internet users who were widely dispersed, in some cases using proxy servers and IP-address-scrambling technologies to evade surveillance.

As our research proceeded, we found a small blogosphere emerging in Kyrgyzstan, linking activists and opposition politicians with one another and with sympathizers throughout Central Asia, Russia and the West. The activists understood that the Internet would hardly be sufficient to oppose the regime, but they also found that social media helped them communicate, building ties that fueled at least part of the revolutionary leadership that toppled President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in April 2010.

3. Facebook and Twitter enabled the Arab Spring.

Even if social-media networks provide activists with new tools to combat repression, they rarely direct social movements - particularly because they don't necessarily drive people onto the streets. While I was in Egypt this summer, citizens explained why they flocked to protests early this year. Their stories focused on hardship and grievances; admiration of the Tunisian revolution; and the power of "street networks," or the techniques used by mosques, unions and community organizers to rally people in the working class, almost none of whom use social media. (Less than 5 percent of Egypt's population uses Facebook, and less than 1 percent uses Twitter.) Some Egyptian bloggers explained to me that they came to Tahrir Square only after the Mubarak regime hit the "kill switch" on the Internet; they also described unsuccessful protests they tried to organize on Facebook. In addition, activists explained that governments can use social media to monitor dissidents, infiltrate movements and spread propaganda.

That said, social media has indirect effects on mobilizing people, including the ability to organize the networks of key activists and shape news coverage. Egyptian TV journalists said to me that they often source stories from Twitter and circulate videos originally shot on mobile phone and disseminated via video-sharing sites.


4. Only young people use social media.

Social media appeals to people of all ages in the Western world, where the most reliable data is available. In the United States, 60 percent of Facebook users are at least 35, and the average age of a Twitter user is now 39 - meaning that many people who were not exposed to the Internet until their 20s are now a big part of its user base. Two-thirds of all American adults use social-networking sites, according to the Pew Research Center, and a 2010 study found that 42 percent of Americans over age 50 are social-media users.

The growth of mobile phone and video-sharing technology mirrors this trend. A recent Pew study found that smartphone users in the United States text and share media across all ages, though youth do so more often.

5. Social media creates a global village.

We've long heard that the Internet was supposed to unite people of different cultural and political persuasions. Yet, despite the explosion of online voices, social-media users rarely access opinions that differ from their own, and many social-media sites - with their bifurcated like/dislike, join/don't join ethos - only perpetuate the sound-bite culture of older media.

Not only are our Facebook friends similar to us (we usually connect through mutual friends and shared interests), but researcher Ethan Zuckerman has shown that the sites we visit reaffirm our political and cultural preconceptions. This homogenization reaches the very machinery of social media - its algorithms - which tailor search results or Facebook feeds according to what the systems "think" users will find most interesting.

Bridging disparate cultural and political backgrounds remains a challenge for social media. To learn from differing viewpoints, the technologies and cultures of social media must evolve so that they bring people together rather than keeping us in digital silos.

The Washington Post

By Ramesh Srinivasan assistant professor of information studies and design/media arts at the University of California at Los Angeles.

Global Islamic Group Hizbut Tahrir Rising in Indonesia, Asia

The chanting crowd at the radical Muslim protest in Indonesia stood out for its normalcy: smartly dressed businessmen, engineers, lawyers, smiling mothers, scampering children.

At a time when Al Qaeda seems to be faltering, the recruitment of such an educated, somewhat mainstream following is raising fears that Hizbut Tahrir, an enigmatic global movement, could prove more effective at radicalizing the Islamic world than outright terrorist groups.

Active in 45 countries, Hizbut is now expanding in Asia, spreading its radical message from Indonesia to China. It wants to unite all Muslim countries in a globe-spanning bloc ruled by strict Shariah law. It targets university students and professionals, working within countries to try to persuade people to overthrow their governments.

The movement's appeal to an often influential part of society worries experts. Its goal of an Islamic state may be far-fetched, but it could still undercut efforts to control extremism and develop democracy in countries such as Indonesia, which the US hopes will be a vital regional partner and a global model for moderate Islam.

"Our grand plan over the next five to 10 years is to reinforce the people's lack of trust and hope in the regime," said Rochmat Labib, the group's Indonesia chairman in a rare interview with a Western reporter.

"That's what we are doing now: converting people from democracy, secularism and capitalism to Islamic ideology."

Hizbut Tahrir, which means The Party of Liberation, is also raising its profile in the United States after operating largely underground since the 1990s. Its first major event was a 2009 conference, followed by another one in Chicago this June.

Starkly conflicting views swirl around Hizbut. It has been described as both a peaceful movement to restore one-time Islamic glory and a breeding ground for future suicide bombers, "a conveyor belt to terrorism," in the words of Zeyno Baran, an expert on Islam in the modern world.

Banned in most countries, Hizbut remains legal in others, including the United States, Great Britain, Australia and Indonesia, where its leaders say it has spread to all 33 provinces.

It is closely monitored everywhere, and often operates on the knife-edge of legality.

"The rhetoric they have goes to the fringe of democracy," said Hans Joergen Bonnichsen, the former head of Denmark's intelligence service.

But the Danish Justice Ministry has twice asked the nation's top prosecutor if Hizbut could be banned under Danish law, and both times the answer was no.

Its new frontier in Asia ranges from Indonesia and neighboring Malaysia to Pakistan and China, where Beijing has accused it of inciting violence among Muslim Uighurs in the remote west.

It has also become the most widespread, and persecuted, radical Muslim group in Central Asia.

The Indonesia chapter is believed to be the largest, with a following estimated in the hundreds of thousands, according to Sidney Jones, an expert on Islam in Southeast Asia.

"They are a real force here. They are a greater long-term threat to Indonesia than people who use violence," said Jones, a Jakarta-based analyst with the International Crisis Group think tank.

"Collectively, hard-line civil society can have a bigger effect than jihadists and terrorists."

Her words are echoed by anti-terrorism expert Zhang Jiadong of China's Fudan University, who said Hizbut is "more harmful than terrorist organizations, because it has more influence on ordinary people."

The group, estimated at up to 20,000 members in China, is more likely to foment riots or rebellions than terrorist attacks, he said.

Ismail Yusanto, the group's urbane spokesman in Indonesia, insists that "we are a peaceful Islamic movement."

"We believe people can be influenced by their environment, so so-called terrorists could be influenced by everyone, not just us. But Hizbut itself is committed to not being violent. There is no evidence," he says, when asked whether some adherents later veer to violence.

The claims of nonviolence contrast with the movement's fiery rhetoric, which calls for the annihilation of Israel - that's what led to it being outlawed in Germany in 2003 - and exhorts Muslims to fight coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. One flyer shows a decapitated Statue of Liberty with New York City aflame in the background.

The US State Department says the group "may indirectly generate support for terrorism but there is no evidence that it has committed any acts of terrorism."

Hizbut followers may later "graduate" to terror under the tutelage of other groups.

Often cited are the first British suicide bombers, Asif Hanif and Omar Khan Sharif, who attacked a Tel Aviv bar in 2001 and had past Hizbut links.

Reports have also linked Hizbut to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the Sept. 11 mastermind, and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the former Al Qaeda chief in Iraq, but they have never been proven.

Hizbut calls for the establishment of a caliphate, uniting all Muslim nations under centralized Islamic rule in emulation of such entities that flourished in the past.

This is to be attained by changing Muslim mindsets to think beyond national borders, then pressing the message among political leaders, the armed forces and other power brokers until governments crumble.

Taquiddin an-Nabhani, a Palestinian lawyer who founded the movement in 1953, didn't rule out violence during the last stage of creating the caliphate, or the possibility of fighting Western nations to protect it or expand it into non-Muslim countries.

In earlier days, Hizbut staged failed coups in Jordan, Syria and Egypt, and it is now largely banned in the Middle East.

In Indonesia, Jones said, Hizbut appeals to those who believe that neither the country’s earlier dictatorship nor present democracy has worked.

She said it has been able to infiltrate the top cleric body, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), and local governments and exercises some clout on issues such as introducing Shariah law, banning non-mainstream Muslim sects and opposing the operations of Western companies in Indonesia.

Unlike many Islamist groups, it welcomes women, who make up about a third of the membership, according to Ratu Erma, the head of its women's organization.

It also enjoys a following among parts of the elite.

"Some of them work by day in Jakarta's main business district making the wheels of capitalism turn and after work talk about overthrowing the country's infidel system. It's one of the conundrums about the HT," says Greg Fealy, an Indonesia expert at Australian National University who is adamant that at least in Indonesia the group is nonviolent.

In Malaysia, young hard-liners disillusioned with the moderating stances of mainstream political parties have turned to Hizbut because "they feel it is sticking to Islamic principles more closely," said Mohamed Nawab Mohamed Osman of Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

Nawab, an expert on the group in Asia, said that Hizbut, which barely filled a meeting room in Malaysia in 2004, recently drew more than 1,000 to a conference and is present in every state but one.

Leaders and followers interviewed in both countries dodge questions about their numbers and inner workings, even the whereabouts of the current global leader, Ata Khalil Abu-Rashta, except to say he is based in the Middle East.

Behind its public face, Hizbut is built along Marxist-Leninst lines with secretive cells as key building blocks.

Nawab says "students" may go through up to five years of arduous training and indoctrination to prove their commitment and become members. Some 60 percent don't make the grade.

Hizbut members have been imprisoned in Russia, Central Asian nations and elsewhere, but some experts say the broad definition of terrorism in these countries - rather than any acts committed - landed many of them in jail, and sometimes before execution squads.

Within the US, opinion is divided. The State Department doesn't name Hizbut as a terrorist group, but the New York City Police Department, in a document obtained by The Associated Press, identified it as a "tier one extremist group" in 2006.

The British government came close to banning the group after the 2005 London bombings, and government officials say membership has shrunk to fewer than 2,000 members. But Britain remains an important base for fund-raising, propaganda efforts and recruiting senior members.

Many leaders in Indonesia and Malaysia were once asylum seekers in the UK who got an education and made connections and then returned home.

Ed Husain, who described his time as a British member in the 2007 book "The Islamist," said that globally the movement is "strong, robust, growing."

"I still believe that the message and ideology of Hizbut Tahrir is as potent as ever," he said in an interview. "Their antidemocratic, anti-West, anti-Israel and anti-Muslim governments stance remains firm. As such, they implant confrontational, radical ideas and thus attitudes among young Muslims."

Denis Gray for the Associated Press