Bagus BT Saragih and Hans David Tampubolon – Legislators and activists have called for the banning of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI), a hard-line group known for its violent, vigilante actions against perceived threats to Islamic values.
The Indonesian Parliamentary Pancasila Caucus, a group of legislators, regional representatives and activists, said President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono should prove "that the state cannot cower to acts of violence shown by the FPI" and other similar groups.
All victims of the FPI's thugs should report to the police so that the courts can classify the FPI as an outlaw group, the Caucus told a press conference on Monday.
Their statement was triggered by FPI actions on Thursday against legislators in Banyuwangi, East Java.
Legislator Ribka Tjiptaning of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) had reported the FPI to the police for breaking up a meeting on the new health bill in a restaurant, which she was attending with two other legislators.
Ribka also reported the incident to the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM), which, she said "should issue a recommendation to ban the FPI because of its frequent violation of human rights".
Banned groups, according to a 1985 law, include those who "disrupt security and public order" and which spread "communism or Marxism-Leninism or other teachings" in opposition to state ideology Pancasila and the Constitution.
Ribka was attending the meeting with fellow members of the House of Representatives' Commission IX overseeing health affairs, Rieke Diah Pitaloka and Nursuhud.
Ribka also reported Banyuwangi Police chief Adj. Sr. Comr. Slamet Hadi Supraptoyo for negligence, saying police stood by as the FPI hooligans intimidated members into breaking up the meeting.
Members of the Banyuwangi branch of the FPI, the Inter-religion Harmony Forum (FKUB) and NGO Gerak disrupted the gathering, which they believed to be a meeting of former members of the banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) and their families. Ribka is the author of I Am Proud to Be a PKI Child, published in 2002.
The secretary-general of the Jakarta branch of the FPI, Habib Novel, said the meeting "was actually a reunion of PKI members" or their sympathizers. "We couldn't allow the meeting to take place because the PKI is a banned organization" since 1965, he said.
FPI commander M. Sidiq said the group was "used to calls to disband." Only its members or the Home Ministry could disband FPI, he said.
In 2008, FPI leader Habib Muhammad Rizieq bin Husein Syihab was jailed for 18 months for inciting violence against members of the Alliance for the Freedom of Religion and Faith at a peaceful rally in Jakarta.
Another Caucus member, Muslim scholar Ulil Abshar-Abdalla, and a new member of the executive board of the President's Democratic Party, also cited the FPI's "systematic violence over the past years". "It's important for us to continuously push the government to disband the FPI," he said.