Police deny "spying" on pesantren

A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

National Police Headquarters denied on Friday that police in Central and West Java provinces had sent in spies to monitor the activities of pesantren (Islamic boarding schools) suspected of harboring the followers of militant group Jamaah Islamiyah (JI).

"This sort of thing is no longer the way we do things in the police in this democratic era," National Police spokesman Sr. Commr. Zainuri Lubis told The Jakarta Post here.

Zainuri was commenting on previous statements by Central Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Didi Widayadi and West Java Police chief Insp. Gen. Dadang Garnida that their officers were conducting "tight surveillance" on a number of pesantren located in their jurisdictions.

The police reportedly stepped up surveillance on pesantren out of fears that they had been infiltrated by and become safe havens for JI followers.

The surveillance was also said to be intended to detect potential terrorist attacks.

Zainuri claimed that the phrase "tight surveillance", as used by the two police generals, did not mean spying.

Conducting tight surveillance, he said, did not mean that the police had deployed intelligence officers to scrutinize the activities of the pesantren.

"Tight surveillance does not meant spying," Zainuri insisted, in an apparent attempt to ease fears among human rights activists and Muslim leaders that the surveillance could lead to human rights violations.

Instead of deploying intelligence officers, the police would gather information on the potential dangers of terrorism, warn the public of these and encourage the public to help the authorities in the fight against the bombers, he said.

Zainuri said police were trying to increase public participation in the antiterrorism campaign.

With the possibility of further bomb outrages in the country undiminished, the police realized that the best way to stop the terrorists was to increase public participation in the early detection of terrorist threats.

Some religious leaders have backed the police move to conduct surveillance on the pesantren, saying that this was justified as a preemptive measure to stop future terrorist attacks.

They warned, however, that the police must respect the prevailing laws when conducting such surveillance operations.