From our favorite “moderate” Muslim country.

Students Kicked Out of School for Having ‘Moves Like Jagger’ — Jakarta Globe

Five high school students in Tolitoli, Central Sulawesi, who recorded themselves dancing to a Maroon 5 song and praying, have been expelled from school and face time in juvenile detention for “tainting religion” after the video surfaced on the Internet.

The five girls were trying to kill time between an hours-long break from classes in the afternoon of March 9 when they made the video.

In a long explanation sent to Detik.com, the headmaster of the school, Muallimin, said he decided to report the students to the police after consulting with the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) and Islamic Defenders Front (FPI).

“The students were performing Sholat [prayer] movement with dancing while alternately reciting [the] Koran and turning on ‘One More Night’ music,” Muallimin said, referring to the Maroon 5 song. “The activity was recorded with a mobile phone of one of the students and they forced other student to hold the phone for a duration of five to six minutes.”

The students have been expelled from school and were forbidden from taking last week’s high school national exam, which counts for 60 percent of a student’s final mark to determine whether they will graduate from high school. The expulsion was approved by the FPI Tolitoli branch head, local Youth and Sports Agency, Tolitoli Religious Affairs Ministry and the MUI.