Lawyers urged to drop Muslim label to defend terror suspects
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.