Label Battle

THE final debate on the Halal Product Guarantee Bill worried leaders of the Indonesian Ulama Council (MUI). They feared their authority to issue halalany object or action which is permissible under Islamic lawlabels for food, beverages and medicinal products could be done away with. Therefore, on Thursday last week, the council's general chairman, Din Syamsuddin, sent a letter to the House of Representatives (DPR) working committee discussing the bill.

In the letter, Din argued that the MUI, an organization of Islamic experts, did not deserve to lose the authority it had held for 25 years and that it would struggle financially without the source of income from dispensing halal designations. "We will fight for it until the last minute," Akhmad Baidun, chair of the MUI's Food, Drug and Cosmetic Studies Agency, declared last week.

September 16, 2014