Jakarta – The Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) says it has supported the decision from the hard line group Islam Defenders Front (FPI) to report publishing company PT Gramedia Pustaka Utama (GPU) to the police for circulating a "heretical book".

MUI chairman, Amidhan, said on Wednesday that the notorious hard line group FPI had the right to report any party who they deemed had conducted defamation against Islam, adding that the group was merely "monitoring" the society. "We should wait for the law enforcers to investigate the case," Amidhan told The Jakarta Post.

He was commenting on the FPI's move to report GPU to the Jakarta Police on Monday for circulating copies of the Indonesian translation of Wilson's Five Cities that Ruled the World: How Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, London, and New York Shaped Global History.

The group claimed that the passages on page 24 of the book indicated that Prophet Muhammad was a crook and a pirate, who ordered his men to raid caravans and murder them as a move to control Medina. While he acknowledged that he had yet to read the book, Amidhan said that if the allegations were true, the book had indeed "insulted the Muslims".

"We have the freedom to express ourselves but the freedom must not hurt somebody's feelings, in this case the Muslims," he said, adding that GPU should be very careful before circulating such book.

The FPI accused GPU of violating Articles 156a, 157, and 484 of the Criminal Code on religious defamation, hate speech and printing texts liable to criminal charges. (asa/iwa)