Indonesian People's Da'wah Party crackdown
# Indonesian People's Da'wah Party crackdown

On 16 November 2021, at around 04.43 Western Indonesia Time (UTC+7), the Indonesian National Police, through its Detachment 88, captured Farid Okbah, chairman of Indonesian People's Da'wah Party, an Islamist party in Bekasi, and also a member of the Bekasi branch of Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI). With him, one party official and one high-ranked member of Indonesian Ulema Council were also captured. Initially, all of them were captured due to allegedly being senior, active, high-ranked members of Jemaah Islamiyah, a Southeast Asian militant extremist Islamist terrorist group, which had gone underground in the 2000s and been accused of actively committing terrorism financing through a front organization.

However, it was later alleged that the party organization was a direct extension and as a new modus operandi of Jemaah Islamiyah itself, in which, rather engaging in sporadic terrorist acts, the group attempted to intervene and participate in the Indonesian democratic political system. According to Detachment 88, the crackdown was based on the witness testimony of earlier-captured 28 terrorists. Before Farid was captured, the governor of Jakarta, Anies Baswedan met him on 14 November, when Farid's parents-in-law died a day earlier.

According to the head of the general information section of the Indonesian National Police's public relations division, Ahmad Ramadhan, the alleged terrorists Farid Okbah, Ahmad Zain An-Najah, and Anung Al-Hamad were threatened with imprisonment for up to 15 years. Farid and Anung also involved in the Jemaah Islamiyah-owned zakat institution, Baitul Maal Abdurrahman Bin Auf (BM ABA), of which its permission was officially removed on 29 January 2021.

As the result of their involvement, Farid, Ahmad Zain, and Anung were sentenced to 3 years in prison on 19 December 2022 for conspiring to promote terrorism and involvement in financial crimes advantaging the terrorist groups.

## Reactions

### Internal reactions

The party issued a press release statement acknowledging the capture of their party leader. The party vowed to continue their process to get legal acknowledgement from the state. The party statement does not mention any affiliation with Jemaah Islamiyah, but did issue a statement that denied any links, claiming that the information was "libelous".

The party leader Farid Okbah denies recent allegations of terrorism, he said that himself does not teach any form of terrorism. PDRI itself also declares to not replace Farid's position as the party's chairman.

### External reactions

The Prosperous Justice Party expressed "disbelief". As the party's ideological ally, the party expressed that precautious measures must be taken and told the state apparatus to not encourage a rise in Islamophobia in Indonesia.

The revelation of an Indonesian Ulema Council high-ranked member being accused of being part of a terrorist organization was also responded to strongly by public. Hashtag activism of "#BubarkanMUI" (Disband the MUI) become trending on Twitter in the country. Initially, MUI attempted to accuse the state of attempting to criminalize ulemas with the Detachment 88 operation and threatened that the capture might further result in a hit to Joko Widodo's administration for being hostile against Islam. After the facts surrounding the case were brought to light, the MUI swiftly changed their stance and promised to deliver a public statement to clarify the issue and provide an explanation to the public. MUI later deactivated the captured member and relieved him from his posts effective from 17 November 2021 and supported law enforcement processing him in accordance with applicable laws.

In response to the capture, MUI later prepared to launch "internal sweeping mechanisms" to clear Islamic extremist elements from the organisation and purge related elements from the MUI institution. MUI also prepared a profiling mechanism to screen any future members from radical and extreme ideologies.

The Ummah Party however, reacted negatively. The party claimed that the operation was a false flag operation to discredit Islam and acted as propaganda/a rationale to disband the MUI. The party launched a campaign attacking the Joko Widodo government.

From the government side, Mahfud MD, Coordinator Minister of Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, asked everyone to respect law enforcement processes until the court makes a decision.

The Division for Resilience of Economical, Artistic, Cultural, Religious, and Societal Affairs of the West Java Province Department of National Unity and Political Affairs, the West Java provincial government apparatus responsible for mass organizations and political party registration and activity monitoring, responded that the party is not registered in their area of responsibility and cannot find their recent activities.

Some political experts were shocked at the events. While they questioned the extent of the truth of the possibility of a terror organization turning into a political party, they left open the possibility that terror organizations may try a new modus operandi to disguise their activity while also collecting political support to support their activities in another manner. They urged the Police to investigate the incident further. They expressed that such a situation is very rare and anomalous if it did happen as alleged. They also theorized that such a move might be taken as moving clandestinely was no longer a viable option to maintain their existence and recruit new assets for them.

The Ministry of Religious Affairs also revoked the operating license of the religious organization suspected as the front organization of JI operated by the captured member of the party after finding "suspicious entries" in their biannual reports submitted to the ministry. In Indonesia, registered religious organizations must submit their activity report biannually to the Ministry of Religious Affairs for monitoring purposes. The ministry also uncovered irregularities which "highly indicated" that the organization existed to cover harmful and publicly threatening activities and acted against the law.

