Jakarta – Conservative religious leaders are marshaling hard-line Islamic groups to counter the growing public pressure for the government to outlaw organizations that commit violence in the name of religion.
In a gathering held at Jakarta's prestigious Grand Istiqlal Mosque in Central Jakarta on Wednesday and organized by the Indonesian Council of Ulema (MUI), representatives from some 50 hard-line groups met to reject calls for the government to disband them or force them to adopt the state ideology of Pancasila.
The groups, including the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), Hizbut Tahrir, the Betawi Brotherhood Forum (FBR) and the Youth Islamic Movement (GPI), also reiterated their support for the sharia bylaws enacted by a number of regions and the pornography bill currently being deliberated at the House of Representatives.
They vowed to continue to protest the publication of the Playboy Indonesia magazine.
MUI last year issued a controversial fatwa that banned all forms of religious pluralism, secularism and liberalism.
Also in attendance were individuals from Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah, the country's two largest Muslim organizations.
The chairman of MUI's fatwa commission, Ma'ruf Amin, led the forum. He said a three-day meeting by MUI in the East Java town of Ponorogo last month had agreed Muslim organizations in Indonesia needed to unite to address their problems.
MUI needed to protect Muslim communities from moral decadence such as pornography and to empower them through building education and the economy, Ma'ruf said.
He said the state-sanctioned council would coordinate the movements of Muslim organizations. "We gather here today to oppose the idea of disbanding Muslim organizations," Hizbut Tahrir chairman M. Al Khaththath told the gathering.
He said he had met with Sudarsono Hardjoesoekarto, the Home Ministry director-general of national unity and politics, to warn him against dissolving any Islamic group because it would be against a 1985 law guaranteeing the freedom to organize.
Sudarsono has said the law authorized the government to disband any organization that disrupted security or the public order. Groups, which received "illegal" aid from overseas or promoted Marxist or Leninist teachings could also be outlawed, he said.
The law also required every organization to adopt the Pancasila as their primary ideology.
Instead of immediately taking action against violent hard-line groups, Sudarsono said the government would meet with them first to persuade them to stop using violence.
The government has been widely criticized for refusing to act firmly against the FPI and other radical groups blamed for a series of attacks on churches and minority Islamic sects.
Wednesday's gathering came amid increasing calls by nationalist and moderate Muslims groups for the nation to revitalize Pancasila as the state ideology after more than 20 local and provincial administrations started adopting sharia-style laws.