Lady Gaga cancels Jakarta concert
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Terror threats end Gaga's concert
Singer Lady Gaga has been forced to cancel her concert in Jakarta, after threats from Islamic extremists, despite attempts to negotiate,
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RELIGIOUS fundamentalists threatening chaos have forced pop diva Lady Gaga to cancel her Jakarta concert because she could not guarantee the safety of fans.
The head of the Islamic Defenders Front, the hard-line group that forced the cancellation yesterday, said: ''Allah has given victory to the Muslims.''
Hours before calling off the concert, Lady Gaga tweeted from her authorised account: ''There is nothing Holy about hatred.''
Lady Gaga. Photo: AFP
The founder of concert promoter Big Daddy, Michael Rusli, said he had received a call from Lady Gaga's management in the morning ordering him to stop the June 3 show at Jakarta's biggest stadium. About 52,000 fans - known as ''Little! Monster s'' - had paid what for many in Indonesia is a monthly salary to attend the show. They were guaranteed a full refund.
Fundamentalists had threatened violence on the grounds the US singer was a devil worshipper and a ''pornography icon''.
The decision follows a drawn-out process during which the police initially bowed to the threats by those who thought the singer would corrupt Indonesia's youth.
But police last week appeared to relent and become open to negotiation, including the suggestion Lady Gaga might modify her show to make it more ''culturally sensitive''. However the Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI, hit back at those moves, claiming it had bought 150 tickets in secret and intended to violently disrupt the show.
The FPI and other hard-line groups have been increasingly influential in Indonesia in pushing the otherwise moderate Islamic-majority country to a more conservative stance.
They have also burnt churches, forced Christian congregations out of their communities and attacked non-Sunni Muslim sects.
Concert promoter Big Daddy said via a Twitter post it was with ''a heavy heart'' that the concert was cancelled.
In the past, pop stars including Beyonce and the Pussycat Dolls have been allowed to perform in the country on condition they wore more conservative dress than usual.