Lawyers urged to drop Muslim label to defend terror suspects

Moch. N. Kurniawan, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Legal experts urged on Sunday the Muslim Lawyers Team (TPM) not to use a religious label in defending terror suspects, fearing the move will only confirm the misleading image that Islam is equatable with terrorism.

Expert Harkristuti Harkrisnowo of the University of Indonesia said that the terror suspects were arrested by the police not because of their religion but because of what they had done, therefore they should not necessarily be defended by lawyers using the Muslim label.

"The term can lead to a total misunderstanding as people will raise the question if the suspects are not identifying themselves with Islam why should they be defended by the Muslim Lawyers Team," she told the Jakarta Post.

However, she said, legally, people could do nothing about the presence of the team as they were free to choose such a name.

"We can't prohibit people from using the name Jamaah Islamiyah, can we?" Harkristuti added.

She hoped that people in Indonesia and other countries could understand that the lawyers do not represent Indonesian Muslims as a whole and that the choice of the name was a matter of expression.

Another legal expert, who requested anonymity, concurred.

"This name (TPM) is misleading as they defend cases which are not related to a certain religion," he said.

According to him, the name TPM would only result in the erroneous impression that the Indonesian Muslim community is dominated by radicals.

"As we all know, the majority of Indonesian Muslims are moderate, represented by Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah," he said.

Analysts are also worried that TPM would create an image that law enforcers are fighting against Muslims.

TPM will defend Amrozi and Imam Samudra, two alleged perpetrators of the Oct. 12 Bali carnage that killed over 190 people. The two, who are being detained, have claimed responsibility for the bombings.

Meanwhile, TPM leader Mahendradatta said the lawyers organization in Indonesia was established to defend Muslim scholars who fought for their beliefs but who were suppressed by state laws.

"We first provided legal aid to Ja'far Umar Thalib who was arrested by the police on charges of torture by ordering the stoning to death of a member of his organization who broke Islamic law," he said.

Ja'far was the commander of the recently disbanded Laskar Jihad, a paramilitary group who helped Muslims fight Christians in Maluku and the Central Sulawesi town of Poso.

Mahendradatta claimed that hundreds of Muslim groups in Maluku had chosen TPM to defend them in many cases.

TPM is also defending Abu Bakar Ba'asyir, leader of the Indonesian Mujahiddin Council, who was arrested for alleged involvement in a number of bomb attacks in the country and a plot to kill Megawati Soekarnoputri before she assumed power.

In Ba'asyir's case, TPM is assisted by lawyers who do use the label of Muslim, such those from the Legal Aid Foundation. The supporting lawyers include Adnan Buyung Nasution.

"We see the current waves of law enforcement moves are trying to pressure Muslim clerics. We don't want this to occur rampantly," he said.

Mahendradatta maintained that TPM action was sectarian.