Muhammad Abdullah Darraz, director of the Maarif Institute, which promotes religious and cultural harmony, said HTI had targeted religious lessons at state high schools to spread its ideology.Ĭlerics offered their services for free, often with school principals and teachers being unaware of their affiliation, he told Reuters.HTI’s spokesman denied this was a strategy but said members were obliged to do missionary work without charge. The survey also found that 77 percent backed Islamist groups advocating this goal. The group has also gained a strong presence in state universities that train public school teachers, meaning new teachers could spread HTI ideology to high school pupils.Ī survey published last December by the Institute for the Study of Islam and Society, showed that 78 percent of 505 religious teachers in public schools supported implementing sharia law in Indonesia. Is it not an authoritarian and repressive action?” said HTI spokesman Yusanto, who likened the crackdown to the tactics used against opponents under former strongman President Suharto.Īsked whether HTI was still operating, Yusanto said no one could ban members from their duty to do “Dakwah” (missionary work) and those activities would continue. “They never gave us a chance to defend ourselves. One of its former members in Indonesia is Bahrun Naim, who went to fight for Islamic State in Syria and is accused of masterminding a series of attacks in Indonesia since early last year.Īn officially registered organisation in Indonesia since 2000, HTI has sought a judicial review in the constitutional court over its disbanding. Hizb ut-Tahrir, an international organisation, established by a Palestinian Islamic scholar in 1953, has been banned in some Arab, Asian and European countries. Moreover, around one in four of the 4,200 Muslim students in the survey by pollster Alvara said they were, to varying degrees, ready to wage jihad to achieve this. “These are not the organizations that students form themselves, but they are from outside,” he said at a briefing that outlined ways to help universities tackle radicalism following the Bali conference. “Radical organizations can spread like a virus in universities,” said Professor Muhammad Sirozi, rector of the State Islamic University Raden Fatah in Palembang on Sumatra. The campaign against extremism in education comes amid a rise of a hardline, politicised Islam in Indonesia, which until recently had occupied the fringe of the nation’s politics. It followed an unprecedented gathering in late September of some 3,000 academics in Bali, who also pledged to fight extremism and defend the secular constitution. Last month, under prodding from the government, thousands of students across the nation made an anti-radicalism pledge. Months later, Indonesian President Joko Widodo banned the decades-old hardline group Hizb ut-Tahrir Indonesia (HTI), which organised the student pledge, and declared its goal to set up a caliphate was incompatible with the constitution and could threaten security. A group of protesters holds a Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia flag during a protest against the President Joko Widodo's decree to disband Islamist groups in Jakarta, Indonesia, July 28, 2017.
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