Nadya Natahadibrata and Yuliasri Perdani, Jakarta – The government cannot disband the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) using the controversial Mass Organization (Ormas) Law following the deadly clash in Kendal and Temanggung as the group's branches in the two regions had not been registered yet, an official said on Friday.
"The authority to control the organization that was deemed to have caused social unrest, is in the hands of the regent. And the regional administrations have used its authority to warn the FPI members not to conduct any sweeping again," Bahtiar, the Home Ministry's mass organization sub-directorate head, said.
Bachtiar said that the raid conducted by the FPI that led a violent clash between the group and angry residents could not be used as a pretext to invoke the Mass Organization Law, which was deemed as a threat to democracy by human rights activists. The local FPI branches, he said, were not registered, while the law could only be applied to registered organizations.
The government has come under pressure to freeze the FPI following the Kendal incident that left a pregnant woman dead. The police have named several FPI members as suspects for the violent clash.
Bahtiar previously said that the organization could be subject to sanctions imposed in stages as stipulated in the Ormas Law, comprised of three warnings, temporary disbandment and permanent disbandment, should the regional administration have enough grounds to say the FPI has created social unrest.
The ministry's statement came as members of the House of Representatives and social media users were calling on President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who condemned the FPI for creating a bad image to Islam, to disband the Islamic group.
Democratic Party politician Melanie Leimena Suharly, who is also the People's Consultative Council deputy speaker, said that the President was waiting for the official statements from the Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah over whether the FPI should be dissolved.
"The President wants to do it with the endorsement of all elements of society," she said as quoted by state news agency Antara.
Several parties have said that disbanding the FPI would set a bad precedent for Indonesia's democracy and that it would not solve the real problem, which they said was weak law enforcement.
Hafidz Usman of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), the country's largest Muslim organization said that the government shared the blame for the clash, saying that the law enforcers have let existing brothels continue business as usual during Ramadhan, which has caused anxiety among FPI members.
"FPI should not be allowed to conduct a sweep, because it was the task of law enforcers. Now, the law enforcers should dig deeper into the case and find the reason why the FPI decided to conduct the raid in the first place," Hafidz said, citing that during Ramadhan, brothels should be closed.
"It's too much that the FPI should be disbanded just because of this incident. The perpetrators should be charged, but the raid was not a policy that came from FPI's head office in Jakarta," he said.
Separately, National Police deputy chief Comr. Gen. Nanan Sukarna said on Friday that the police would use a humanistic approach in handling the FPI. "We should strictly enforce the law, but we also need to provide a solution," he said at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta on Friday.
"If he [FPI chairman Habib Rizieq] has realized that they are not allowed to conduct a sweep, why do we need to put all [FPI members] behind bars?" he continued.
However, Nanan denied the assumption that the force had been lenient toward the FPI, which was notorious for its violent raids on nightclubs, bars and brothels.