•    HOME   
•    NEWS   
•    BUSINESS   
•    INTERNATIONAL   
•    TECH   
•    SPORTS   
•    LIFE & TIMES   
•    OPINION   
•    MY JAKARTA   
•    BLOGS   

Students and teachers at a university in Malang, East Java, are still puffing away despite a ban against smoking issued by the Muslim group that founded it.

Muhammadiyah University rector Muhajjir Effendi said the fatwa by the nation’s second largest Muslim group was not yet legally binding. Until it was, the campus would be split into smoking and non-smoking areas.

Muhajjir said the fatwa had yet to become a regulation passed by Muhammadiyah’s central board. Once it was, the ban would be applied across the campus.

He said he expected the regulation to be discussed in July, when the group convened. But looking at the surrounding debate, Muhajjir said he was not sure it would be passed.

Muhammadiyah last month issued a fatwa banning its followers from smoking, saying it was a form of suicide.

Yunahar Ilyas, chairman of the group’s fatwa committee, said smoking affected people’s bodies and killed them slowly. “Therefore it is forbidden because Islam forbids suicide,” he said.

The group is also expected to urge the government immediately to ratify the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

Yunahar said Muhammadiyah issued a directive in 2005 declaring smoking mubah , which meant it was allowed but not recommended. “We are confident our followers will be able to obey the fatwa,” he said.

The group also targeted cigarette advertising as one of the main culprits behind smoking, especially among the young.

A study by the National Commission for Child Protection (Komnas Anak) in 2007 said almost half of teens polled who had taken up smoking did so because of advertising. The study said tobacco companies sponsored 1,350 youth-oriented events from January to October in 2007.

In January 2009, the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI) issued a limited restriction on tobacco use. It banned Muslims from smoking in public places and prohibited children and pregnant women from taking up the habit.

MUI’s fatwa prompted the Ministry of Finance to warn that revenue from tobacco excise could fall below its 2010 target. The ministry had hoped to rake in Rp 49.6 trillion ($5.5 billion) in excise duties this year, with Rp 48.24 trillion of that coming from cigarette sales.

Indonesia is one of four countries that has yet to ratify the UN convention, which came into force in 2005. It mandates that the 152 nations that signed implement effective methods to reduce tobacco use.