Police beef up security around S'pore embassy<\/p>\n
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta<\/p>\n
Already tight police security has been stepped up around the
\nSingaporean Embassy here, following angry protests by hard-line
\ngroups in the past two days over Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew's
\ncontroversial remarks on terrorism in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
\"We have deployed police personnel around the area\" who will
\nbe \"ready to take action against protesters should they become
\nviolent,\" National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Saleh Sa'af told
\nThe Jakarta Post on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
\"Security personnel at the National Police Headquarters and
\nCity Police Headquarters have also been ordered to remain on high
\nalert,\" he added.<\/p>\n
Some 300 members of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) and the
\nIslamic Youth Movement (GPI) urged Lee on Tuesday to retract his
\nstatements and apologize to the Indonesian people.<\/p>\n
Failure to do so would be met with a continuation of anti-
\nSingapore demonstrations in the capital, they said.<\/p>\n
HTI spokesman Ismail Yusdanto said that Lee's assertions about
\nterror groups operating out of Indonesia, coupled with Singapore
\nauthorities' allegation that Mujahidin Council Chief Abu Bakar
\nBa'asyir was linked to international radical cells, were
\nunsubstantiated.<\/p>\n
\"Neither Singapore authorities nor Lee have come up with any
\nconcrete evidence that Indonesia harbors terrorists, or that
\nUstad Ba'asyir is linked to terrorists,\" Ismail told reporters
\nduring the protest.<\/p>\n
The city-state, he added, a \"puppet\" of the U.S.<\/p>\n
\"If Lee does not apologize, we will come back to the streets
\nin bigger numbers,\" he said.<\/p>\n
GPI members burned an effigy of Lee Kuan Yew along with a
\nSingaporean flag outside the city-state's Embassy.<\/p>\n
GPI Jakarta Chief Iqbal Siregar said that an official at the
\nSingaporean Embassy had received him, and promised to convey
\nprotesters' wishes to the Singaporean government.<\/p>\n
On Monday, some 100 members of the militant Islamic Defenders
\nFront (FPI) and Laskar Mujahidin marched outside the Singaporean
\nEmbassy, angrily demanding that Indonesia sever ties.<\/p>\n
In Bali, National Police Chief Gen. Da'i Bachtiar said on
\nTuesday that he would soon dispatch another team of detectives
\nand intelligence officers to Singapore in order to interview the
\n13 Jamaah Islamiah operatives now detained there.<\/p>\n
The arrested men earlier claimed that Ba'asyir, Indonesian
\npreacher Hambali -- wanted by the National Police for his role in
\nthe 2000 Christmas bombings -- and another Indonesian preacher,
\nMohamad Iqbal A. Rahman, were currently detained in Malaysia,
\nwere the men who issued directions to the operatives.<\/p>\n
The suspects, none of whom are Indonesian, are currently being
\ndetained there without trial for plotting to bomb U.S. targets in
\nSingapore.<\/p>\n
In Surakarta, Ba'asyir's lawyers said on Tuesday that they
\nwere preparing to file a defamation suit against the Singaporean
\ngovernment for calling the cleric a terrorist without evidence.<\/p>\n
Ba'asyir said that Lee's statements were aimed at degrading
\nIndonesians, since they were made without going through the
\nproper diplomatic channels.<\/p>\n
\"Something is very wrong there,\" Ba'asyir said in Surakarta on
\nTuesday. He added that, in Indonesia, there were no terrorists,
\nonly fighters defending Islam.<\/p>\n
\"The U.S. and its allies are not fighting terrorism,\" he said,
\n\"they are trying to crush Islam and Muslims.\"<\/p>",
"url": "https:\/\/jawawa.id\/newsitem\/police-beef-up-security-around-spore-embassy-1447893297",
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"sponsor": "Okusi Associates",
"sponsor_url": "https:\/\/okusiassociates.com"
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