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Muslim moralists, or thugs in robes?
Islamic Defenders Front in media spotlight for attacking Playboy offices
South China Morning Post
Saturday, April 22, 2006
Jakarta --- With its trademark white uniforms and noisy protests, the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) has become the highly visible face of radical Islam in Indonesia.
But critics charge its members are little more than thugs in robes.
Claiming a membership of several thousand, with links to various Muslim groups, the eight-year-old FPI made international headlines in 1999 when it launched violent anti-vice raids on bars and other venues deemed sinful.
It was in the media spotlight again last week when 300 members -- scandalised by the local debut of Playboy in Muslim-majority Indonesia -- attacked the magazine's editorial office, lobbing rocks at police officers and injuring two.
The magazine suspended operations on Thursday, with its editor saying security was taking precedence over the publishing of a second edition.
"Playboy is synonymous with pornography," FPI leader Muhammad Rizieq Shihab said last week. "The name itself means a man who likes to play around with women. Who can guarantee that they won't publish nudity in the future?"
Separate FPI protests have also forced a local tabloid to apologise for publishing the controversial Danish cartoons of the Prophet and, with another Muslim group, the organisation has managed to close dozens of Christian churches.
The group also managed to close the main event on Jakarta's contemporary art calendar last September when it was outraged by a work depicting a nearly-nude male.
But commentators wonder whether a few hundred demonstrators should be able to impose their values on a country of 220 million.
In an editorial on Monday, The Jakarta Post railed against these "storm troopers of God and ideology", comparing the FPI and other militants to Italy's fascist Blackshirts.
"In a confused libertarian society such as ours, lawlessness is glorified and agents of chaos knighted as persons of authority," the editorial said.
Although 88 per cent of Indonesians are Muslims, most practise a tolerant form of the faith and do not appear to support FPI demands.
"It's part of the growing vocalism of conservatives. I'm not so sure that more noise represents more people," Bambang Harymurti, editor of Indonesia's leading investigative magazine, Tempo, said.
FPI members are rarely prosecuted for their attacks. By dressing in flowing Arabic robes and claiming to represent the Islamic community, the FPI and other hardline Muslim groups are able to take the moral high ground, analysts say.
"Police are seen to be corrupt by society, so they are a bit afraid of someone who does something for morality," Mr Harymurti said.
The Playboy demonstrations are largely seen as part of a push among conservatives for parliament to adopt a wide-ranging anti-pornography law that would ban kissing in public, observers say.
"It's a political hot potato," said Martin Hughes, a security analyst at Control Risks, a risk consultancy, referring to Playboy and the pornography debate.
"The pendulum of law and order has swung in the other direction [from when Indonesian police were notorious for their heavy-handedness].
"Police are a lot more image sensitive. If they were seen to crack down heavily on FPI then lots of people would think the police support Playboy."
Some fear the FPI is not just an activist group lobbying for their fellow Muslims but rather Islamic hardliners trying to convert multi-ethnic and religiously tolerant Indonesia into a fundamentalist state.
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INDONESIA: FPI member arrested for 'Playboy' attack
Police arrest members of Islam Defenders Front for attack on Playboy Indonesia's office building
Jakarta Post
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Jakarta --- South Jakarta Police have arrested a member of the Islam Defenders Front (FPI) for last week's attack on the building that Playboy Indonesia magazine runs out of.
Playboy's office is on the fourth floor but the attackers did not make it past the lobby.
Police identified the FPI member as Agus Irawan, a resident of Ciomas village in Babakan, Bogor.
Earlier police arrested the coordinator of the protest, Zaenal alias Ali Zaini, for allegedly inciting the protesters to carry out acts of anarchy.
The chief of the precinct's crime unit, Comr. Suyudi Ario Seto, said police would likely summon FPI leader Habib Rizieq for questioning.
"He can be a witness in this case or even a suspect, it will depend on the questioning," Suyudi said.
. but only on pizza. but the smell of bacon literally makes me spew. 
ahahhahahahhahahahahhahahaha...
