The Indonesian government said it was still in the dark on Tuesday after several Indonesian citizens were arrested in Malaysia last week for “breaching Islamic laws”, although the incident has been widely publicized.
As of Tuesday, reports said the detainees, including foreign nationals from other countries, had all been released on bail — except for two Iranians.
Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Michael Tene quoting information from the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur said embassy officials had not received any reports and only began looking into the case on Tuesday.
“[Embassy officials] knew about the case when it was first reported by local media, but they don’t know if any of those arrested are Indonesians,” he told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Michael said the Indonesian government would monitor the case and would make sure that any Indonesian nationals facing criminal charges would have full access to legal assistance.
More than 200 Muslim Shiites — including Indonesians, Iranians and Pakistanis — who were arrested in one of the biggest swoops on outlawed Muslim sects in Malaysia, may be charged with breaching Islamic laws, a Malaysian government official said Monday as reported by the Associated Press.
They were arrested last week and accused of being followers of the “outlawed” Shiite sect.
Officials said Shiite doctrine was a threat to national security because it permitted the killing of Muslims from other sects who were regarded as infidels.
“Although the Shiites arrested recently for deviant teachings do not pose a threat to the country’s security, the government is monitoring the situation to ensure their teachings do not contain elements of terrorism,” Malaysian Home Minister Hishammuddin Tun Hussein told Bernama news agency on Sunday.
The Malaysian government considers only the Sunni denomination to be legal in the Muslim-majority country.
Sunni is the world’s largest branch of Islam, followed by Shiite.
Muslims make up about 60 percent of Malaysia’s population of 28 million people, while most of the rest are Buddhists, Hindus or Christians from the ethnic Chinese and Indian communities.
Nurhamizah said most of those arrested would likely be charged in an Islamic court with following the teachings of the sect. They face up to two years in prison.
Indonesian National Commission on Human Rights deputy chairman Ridha Saleh said, despite not knowing the details of the case, that Malaysia had violated international human rights principles by the arrests if the group were not conducting activities that threatened Malaysian national security.
Ridha and Jallaluddin Rakhmat, a Muslim scholar from Raden Patah Islamic State University in Palembang, South Sumatra, said the Indonesian government’s attitude to Shiite Muslims was better that the Malaysians.
“It is actually individuals who claim that [Shiites] deviate from Islam,” Jallaluddin told the Post.
