Hard-liners step up pressure for JIL to close

Hard-liners step up pressure for JIL to close

Tiarma Siboro, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Muslim hard-liners have continued intimidating the Liberal Islam
Network (JIL), an organization that promotes pluralism and
liberalism in the country, after failing to realize their threat
to attack its office in Utan Kayu, East Jakarta, last month.

The radical conservatives are now seeking support from Utan
Kayu residents to stop the activities of JIL -- who they accuse
of spreading a defiant tenet of Islam -- and are warning the
liberal group to close its office by Tuesday evening.

In addition to JIL, several other institutions -- including
Galeri Lontar, the Institute for the Studies on Free Flow of
Information (ISAI), and private radio station Radio 68H, which
are all headquartered in the Utan Kayu Community complex -- were
told to halt their operations.

Cleric Ustadz Tandjung, who heads the Al-Muslimun mosque in
the area, has accused ISAI, Radio 68H and Galeri Lontar of being
parts of JIL's undertows for similarly promoting liberalism,
pluralism and secularism.

Leaflets have been distributed among local residents, asking
them to support the attempt to evict the four institutions from
Utan Kayu.

Several figures from JIL and the other threatened
institutions, grouped as the Utan Kayu Community, held a meeting
on Sunday night with the local district head to discuss the
threats from the hard-liners.

"Figures from the Utan Kayu Community prefer to pursue
peaceful ways by clarifying our activities here. We told the
local district head that we have not committed any crimes, and
the leaflets have spread false information against us," Lalang, a
staffer working for the ISAI, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

"We believe that the district head has understood the
situation. And now, we are organizing a dialog with local
religious leaders and other residents living in the Utan Kayu
area to make them understand our activities here," he added.

Lalang said the dialog session is planned for Tuesday evening
with the local community and religious leaders.

On the same day, activists of JIL, ISAI and other institutions
would also hold a news conference at their office compound.

Muslim hard-liners have increased their threats against JIL
after the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) in July issued a much-
criticized decree outlawing liberalism, pluralism and secularism.

Early in August, hard-liners from the Islam Defenders Front
(FPI) had reportedly planned to attack the JIL office, but the
threat failed to materialize as the building was tightly guarded
by police.

In 2003, hard-liners from the Islamic Community Brotherhood
Forum (FUUI) had even declared that the blood of JIL coordinator Ulil
Absar Abdalla was halal (permitted under Islamic law), meaning
that he was allowed to be murdered by Muslims.

Separately, leader of the country's largest Muslim
organizations Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) Hasyim Muzadi, appealed to
Muslims to not commit acts of violence against others, saying
that religions must solve problems rather than creating them.

"Radicalism and liberalism are like a coin. One leads to
another. And, I hope that Muslim followers can use their
religious thought truly, which respects their own community, as
well as that of non-Muslims," he told a news conference at NU
headquarters in Central Jakarta.