Jakarta, NU Online
The government’s reluctance to act against a hard-line Islamic group following its third violent skirmish in the space of two months has exasperated politicians, but the group has denied responsibility for the latest incident.<>

Nurul Arifin, a deputy secretary general of the Golkar Party, said on Tuesday that an armed attack by a mob from the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) on Monday against a group of villagers in Lamongan, East Java, should spur the government into disbanding the group once and for all.

“If they continue these kinds of law-breaking activities, they should be immediately disbanded,” she said as quoted by the Jakarta Globe.

She warned that the authorities’ continued refusal to hold the group accountable for its litany of offenses over the years could compel those fed up with the FPI to take matters into their own hands, thus leading to a cycle of violence.

“Don’t let there be a chain reaction of conflicts just because the police are impotent against law-breaking organizations. There should be no room for law-breakers in this country,” Nurul said.

Unprovoked attack

Police have arrested 42 FPI members in connection with the attack in the early hours of Monday on residents of Lamongan’s Kandang Semangkon village, and named 22 of them as suspects over the violence that left three people injured.

Police also seized 50 sharp weapons from the FPI members, including machetes and samurai swords.

Sr. Comr. Awi Setiyono, a spokesman for the East Java Police, said as quoted by Tempo.co that the incident stemmed from an unprovoked attack last Thursday by three FPI members on three youths from the village. In retaliation, a group of villagers marched on the home of one of the attackers late on Sunday night, but after failing to find him there, attacked his wife.

In the early hours of Monday, an FPI mob stormed the village in revenge, destroying six motorcycles and vandalizing a home. They then took to the streets and attacked innocent bystanders, as well as set fire to two motorcycles in a dealer’s lot.

Gen. Timur Pradopo, the National Police chief, vowed that police would take a hard-line against the perpetrators.

“We will always protect the people, and if indeed [the FPI] broke the law, they will be dealt with accordingly,” he said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

He would not say if the incident, the third in less than two months, warranted the disbanding of the group.

Three strikes

The FPI was involved in a similar clash with residents of East Java’s Kendal district on July 18 during an attempt to raid a brothel there.

They damaged several businesses before local residents turned on the hard-liners, forcing the FPI to beat a retreat. As the FPI members attempted to flee the scene, one vehicle ran down a couple on a motorcycle, killing the female passenger and injuring her husband.

In late June, an FPI mob in Makassar, South Sulawesi, vandalized a liquor store.

Nurul said the newly amended Mass Organizations Law gave the government full justification to disband the FPI in light of these actions.

She said Article 62 of the law, passed earlier this year, effectively gave groups like the FPI a “three strikes and you’re out” ultimatum, and that the Lamongan incident constituted the third strike.

“The government should at least order a temporary halt to [the FPI’s] activities. And if they persist, then under the law the government has the mandate to disband the organization,” Nurul said, adding that the government’s continued reluctance to act against the FPI was inconsistent with prevailing statutes.

However, Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi has spoken up for the FPI, claiming that its Lamongan chapter, like the Kendal one, is not an officially sanctioned branch of the organization and that therefore the FPI should not be held responsible for its actions.

“I’ve checked and it appears that the Lamongan FPI isn’t registered. I’ve heard that the FPI hasn’t even appointed any officials there, so it’s a matter of personal responsibility, not group responsibility,” he said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

“I’ve heard that the FPI’s [central board] will take a stance on the matter, and it’s better that way. If the [Lamongan FPI] was using the group’s name, uniform and symbols unofficially, then the FPI’s central board should be firm about the matter.”

Gamawan said it was a similar case in the Kendal incident, with the local branch of the FPI not officially recognized by either the organization or the government.

He encouraged the FPI to sue individuals or groups that carried out raids or attacks in its name or under its banner.

He added that the government could not bring the Mass Organizations Law to bear against the FPI in either the Lamongan or Kendal cases because the group was not involved as an organization, even if individual members were involved.

Wasn’t us

Haidar Alhamid, the chairman of the FPI’s East Java chapter, said on Monday that the Lamongan branch had been dissolved in 2010 because of its “insolence” toward Rizieq Shihab, the FPI chairman.

“When I was inaugurated by Rizieq at the end of 2010 along with the heads of the FPI’s district and municipal chapters from across East Java, there was no longer any Lamongan chapter,” he said as quoted by Kompas.com.

“The Lamongan chapter had gone against the organization’s views on relations between the state and religion, and for that, it was frozen.”

Muhammad Mahdi, the head of the East Java FPI’s high council, said separately as quoted by Tempo.co that the Lamongan chapter had been suspended since September 2010.

He said the suspension was requested by the East Java chapter because of the Lamongan leadership’s “lack of discipline,” following an attack by its members on restaurants selling alcohol in the run-up to Ramadan that year.

Idrus Al Gadhri, the head of the FPI chapter in Depok, West Java, claimed that Monday’s incident was a conspiracy by unscrupulous parties to tarnish the organization’s reputation.

“There is no Lamongan branch, and those who were [involved in the clash] are only pretending to be FPI members,” he said as quoted by Sindonews.com.

“I’ve been with the FPI for 14 years, so I know that all negative news about the FPI must be checked thoroughly first.”

Blaming the Lamongan incident on the FPI, he went on, “is slanderous.”

Editing by Sudarto Murtaufiq