Muslim groups urge Ba'asyir's supporters to stop rallies
Muhammad Nafik, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The country's two largest Muslim organizations urged on Saturday supporters of elderly cleric Abu Bakar Ba'asyir to stop demonstrations in support of the terrorist suspect as they only tarnished the image of Islam as a peaceful religion.
Also, street protests could disrupt the investigation into 64- year-old cleric.
"They (the demonstrations) should end. They are counterproductive. The tactic should be changed to strengthening the legal team to defend Ba'asyir," Hasyim Muzadi, chairman of the 40-million-strong Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), told The Jakarta Post.
He said that in order to allow the police to investigate Ba'asyir, his supporters should have exercised restraint and kept silent instead of reacting to his forcible arrest.
"With such massive protests by Muslims, it will justify worldwide claims by Westerners and others that Islam is not peaceful but violent," Hasyim said.
"Ba'asyir's supporters should use his legal process as momentum to exonerate him of all charges as a terrorist," he added.
Ahmad Syafii Maarif, who chairs the second biggest Muslim organization Muhammadiyah with some 30 million members, also told supporters of Ba'asyir to cease street rallies against the government in its endeavor to fight terrorism.
"It (the protests) is useless and harms the legal process of Ba'asyir," he told the Post separately.
The demonstrations could harm the image of Islam and Muslims in Indonesia in the campaign against terrorism, Syafii added.
Violence erupted when police forcibly took Ba'asyir from his bed in the Muhammadiyah hospital in the Central Java town of Surakarta on Oct. 28.
Since then, hundreds of his supporters staged a series of demonstrations in Surakarta, Makassar in South Sulawesi and other cities last week. They opposed the forcible arrest of the cleric, who has been accused by Singapore and Malaysia of being the leader of Jamaah Islamiyah, which has been blacklisted by the United Nations.
Muslim leaders and other critics have also condemned the violent manner in which the police arrested Ba'asyir, but said Ba'asyir supporters should not have resisted the questioning.
Hasyim said both the Ba'asyir issue and terrorism should be separated from Islam because it was not part of it. "All Muslims, particularly Ba'asyir's supporters and other radicals, must be able to ensure this separation".
The top NU leader said the investigation into the cleric "should be considered merely a legal affair" and that Islam should not be dragged into the case.
"Should we continue to use religion and mass demonstrations in the Ba'asyir issue, Islam will be buried and the case will not be settled because the public opinion built by Westerners is too strong to challenge," he added.
Hasyim and Syafii also told the United States and its allies to stop claiming that there were al-Qaeda cells operating in Indonesia unless they had hard evidence. This would help the process of rooting out terrorism in the country, they added.
"We have to convince other countries that someone can legally be branded a terrorist only after a court declares them guilty of being so," Hasyim said.
The two prominent Muslim leaders urged the National Police to speed up the investigation into Ba'asyir to prevent further backlashes from his supporters and other radicals as well as suspicion from the international community.
"The questioning must be done quickly and transparently, otherwise it could spark suspicions against Indonesia that it has not been serious in handling the case. That would be dangerous to the nation as a whole," Syafii said.
"If a court later acquits Ba'asyir of all charges, all people, including foreigners, must respect that. And his name must be rehabilitated," he added.
Ba'asyir, currently being treated at the Kramat Jati police hospital in East Jakarta, has been implicated in a series of bombings across Indonesia.
However, the police have not linked him to the devastating Bali attack on Oct. 12, which killed at least 190 people, mostly foreigners.