Justice and Human Rights Minister Patrialis Akbar on Monday said that a special team has been given two weeks to study a number of books that are deemed to potentially pose a threat to the unity of the nation.

"The team just started working today [Monday] to study those books and I have asked the team [to complete their work] within 15 days at the latest," Patrialsi told journalists at the presidential office.

He said that the results of the study would then be discussed at a meeting of Coordinating Ministry for Political, Legal and Security Affairs officials "to decide on the next steps."

He declined to say whether the next steps would include blacklisting the books, saying, "we are not yet talking about banning."

Patrialsi said that there were more than 20 books that would be looked at by the team. The books, he said, were related their perceived negative effect on "the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia [NKRI]"

"We love NKRI, we love the nation," Patrialsi said. "The books would be studied to see whether they threatened the NKRI, for example, by denying that Indonesia was a unitary state."

He declined to give further details, including giving the titles of the books being examined or their authors, saying that was not necessary because "the study process is still ongoing and therefore no decisions have been made yet."

Meanwhile, the chairman of the Constitutional Court, Mahfud MD, said that NGO activists could seek a judicial review of the articles or laws that concerned bans on books that could cause public disorder. He said that such demands for a review would be processed by the court.

Efendi Ghazali, from the Coalition of the Civilian Society Against Corruption (Kompak), said his organization was planning to file several judicial reviews to the Constitutional Court.

One of them, Efendi said, was related to the use of the 1963 law on "measures for print products with contents considered harmful to public order."

Efendi, who is also a communication expert of the University of Indonesia, said that law had been used by the government as a basis for banning books deemed to cause unrest among the general populace.

The banning of books, Efendi said, was regrettable especially since Indonesia was now widely regarded as one of the world's largest democracies.

The Commission for Disappearances and Victims of Violence (Kontras) has also sent a letter to the Attorney General's Office concerning its recent ban on several books deemed to cause anxiety among the people.

The organization said that the letter was sent to the AGO last Tuesday.

In the letter, Kontras deplored a move by Attorney General Hendarman Supandji to ban the circulation of five books deemed to disturb public order, including, "Pretext for Mass Murder: The September 30th Movement and Suharto's Coup d'Etat in Indonesia" by John Roosa.

According to Kontras, the move by the AGO was reminiscent of President Suharto's New Order regime.