If he did do what he is said to have done, he was brave, but foolish.

As reported by the Australian ABC, relying on a report from AFP:

www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/30/2997783.htm

'Man charged after pulling plug on mosque loudspeaker'.

'Indonesia authorities have arrested an American man for blasphemy after he pulled the plug on a loudspeaker at a mosque because it woke him  up, police said.

'Luke Gregory Lloyd, 64, was taken into custody after he disrupted a nightly Koran reading session near his home on Lombok Island which was being broadcast over the mosque's loudspeaker during the Muslim  holy month of Ramadan.

'The incident happened on August 22 and Lloyd has been under police guard at a hotel ever since, pending further investigations.

"He got angry as the Koranic reading woke him up.  He scolded people in the mosque before pulling out the loudspeaker's cable", police officer Lalu Mahsun told reporters.

'He could face five years in jail under the mainly Muslim country's blasphemy laws'.

- Hmm. So if you get angry about having your sleep disturbed by broadcasts from a mosque, and publicly express that anger, you are committing 'blasphemy'??  In modern, moderate, democratic Indonesia.  

- If Mr Lloyd did in fact do what he is said to have done, his approach - angrily telling off the offenders, and pulling the plug - is rather reminiscent of the usual *Muslim* method of expressing disapproval of something. Spot it and stop it.  Command right and forbid wrong.  Muslims do it all the time in non-Muslim lands - every time a Muslim male on Cronulla beach or a Gold Coast beach threatens and harasses a non-Muslim woman whom he deems insufficiently covered; and I seem to recall at least one case of a Muslim in Britain marching into a church during the service to demand that the volume of the singing be reduced because it was annoying him (and that in broad daylight; not in the small hours, as when this Indonesian incident is supposed to have happened).  Muslims feel entitled to lay down the - Muslim - law to non-Muslims on non-Muslim turf, but woe to the unwary infidel who forgets himself and rebukes Muslims on Muslim turf!  One wonders how long Mr Lloyd has lived in Indonesia, and whether he was brave, or foolish, or simply driven beyond reasonable endurance.  There is no mention of how close he lived to the mosque, nor what decibel level was issuing from the loudspeakers. - C. M.

'Police also said Lloyd's visa had expired in 2006.'

- There may be more to this story than meets the eye.  It is, indeed, possible that the whole dramatic tale of the angry, blasphemous American Infidel storming into the mosque and pulling the plug on the loudspeakers in the middle of a Koran reading, may be a fabrication, perhaps intended to test whether the USA is willing to let Muslims do as they will to an American citizen.  We have seen, in many reports from Pakistan, accusations of 'blasphemy', whether made against Muslims or non-Muslims, that were completely false.  And, for that matter, the statement about the visa should not necessarily be believed, either.  I would like to hear Mr Lloyd's version of events, before drawing any final conclusions. 

I have not heard any more about this case as yet; will keep an eye open. - C. M.