“The Bekasi mosque takeover was not an isolated case […] In many cases, mosque authorities act before extremist control becomes entrenched, simply by telling radical preachers that their activities are unacceptable.”
Source/Credit: The Jakarta Post
By Yuliasri Perdani | July 02 2014
A handful of local communities and officials across the country have expelled extremist preachers from their mosques despite the absence of support from the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), the latest study of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) has found.
Titled “Countering Violent Extremism in Indonesia: Need for a Rethink”, the study explored the cases of local communities, local government officials and police officers in Bekasi, on the outskirts of Jakarta, and Central Java’s Klaten who worked hand in hand to reclaim their mosques from the influence of radicalism.
In Bekasi, local residents organized a movement to remove Muhammad Nanang, the head of the mosque welfare council (DKM) of Muhammad Ramadhan Mosque, after he held discussions and events promoting jihad, including a fund-raiser for the Islamic State of Iraq and and the Levant (ISIL).
When Nanang refused to leave, the residents turned to the subdistrict head, Abi Hurairah, and the South Bekasi Police chief, Comr. Susilo Edy, for help.
Abi, Susilo and local religious leaders joined forces to reclaim the mosque. The first step was to show community resistance against Nanang’s supporters. The second strategy was to use the government’s ownership of the land on which the mosque stood to wrest legal control from the DKM. Backed by 200 police officers, the Bekasi administration formally took over the mosque and dismissed Nanang in April last year.
“The Bekasi mosque takeover was not an isolated case […] In many cases, mosque authorities act before extremist control becomes entrenched, simply by telling radical preachers that their activities are unacceptable,” the report says.
Such was the case with the Jami Mosque in Krapyak, Klaten, when Musab Abdul Ghaffar, alias Darwo, who had close ties to militant group Jemaah Islamiyah, introduced jihad values during discussions and Koran recitals for the community in 2008.
Darwo and his followers left the mosque after the head of the mosque’s board, Agus Sukarno, disbanded a Koran recital led by Darwo.
Indonesia has been a hotbed of terrorist activities since the early 2000s, with groups of hard-liners receiving military-style training from global terrorist groups and engaging in bomb attacks in Java and Bali. The National Police have gone the extra mile by setting up counterterrorism squad Detachment 88 and the BNPT. IPAC director, Sidney Jones, has suggested that the BNPT should use the cases of local communities fighting radicalism to improve its prevention programs.
“The trick is to understand when, why and how individuals and communities decide to resist extremism and then to design interventions that can replicate the process,” Jones said in a press statement on Tuesday.
She urged the BNPT to study the case dossiers of convicted terrorists, which provided information on the mosque where they became radicalized, to create a list of mosques to be targeted in its prevention programs.
The IPAC also suggested the next government consider radically restructuring the BNPT to ensure that the people involved in collecting intelligence on terrorist networks — including police and prison officials — were also involved in the planning of deradicalization and counter-radicalization programs.
Terrorism expert Noor Huda Ismail, whose foundation Yayasan Prasasti Perdamaian facilitates rehabilitation efforts for terrorist-linked inmates, said recently that restructuring of the BNPT was needed to significantly improve the nation’s terrorism prevention efforts.
“Many of BNPT’s staff are not that experience in the subject. They are there partly because of nepotism, not because of their deep understanding and creative thinking to tackle the issue,” said Noor Huda.
Read original post here: Local communities stand up against radical preachers
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