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number of regional administrations are insisting on keeping bylaws that ban the distribution of liquor despite the government’s recommendation that they be repealed because they contradict higher laws and regulations.

Bandung municipal administration says its bylaw will remain in force and it will continue to carry out inspections on roadside stalls and minimarkets, ignoring the Home Ministry’s recommendation to revise the bylaw.

Bandung’s Industry and Trade Agency head, Ema Sumarna, said on Friday that the administration would carry out inspections on 515 supermarkets, minimarkets and stores to ensure that no alcoholic drinks were sold openly.

The policy, he said, was based on a 2010 bylaw and a 2011 municipal decree, both of which stipulate that alcoholic drinks can be sold only at licensed three to five-star hotels, discothèques, karaoke halls and nightclubs.

“Supermarkets, minimarkets, shops and jamu [herbal medicine] kiosks are no longer allowed to sell it [alcohol]. If we find any, it will be confiscated.”

Bandung Public Order Agency head Ferdi Ligaswara said: “It is in the interest of the public that alcoholic drinks are not sold openly.”

In Tangerang, dozens of local Muslim scholars, religious figures and Islamic boarding school students staged a rally at the city administration office to protest the Home Ministry’s recommendation that the administration repeal its 2005 bylaw banning the consumption and distribution of alcoholic drinks.

Local Muslim figure Baijuri Kholid said the Home Ministry’s decision was an affront to all Muslims in the country because the presence of such liquor bylaws had helped disseminate Islamic teachings that reject the consumption of alcohol.

Home Minister Gamawan Fauzi has acknowledged that his ministry recommended the revocation of hundreds of bylaws nationwide, including nine concerning the distribution of alcoholic drinks.

However, he denied that he had repealed the bylaws as alleged by a number of Islamic groups such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI). “I don’t have the authority to repeal bylaws. The Home Ministry is only authorized to evaluate and issue recommendations for bylaws that we find are not in line with higher regulations and laws,” he said.

Home Ministry spokesman Reydonnyzar Moenek said many of the bylaws contradicted a 1997 presidential decree on the distribution of liquor, based on alcoholic content.

The decree says, drinks with less than 5 percent alcoholic content can be distributed without a license. However, he said, many bylaws also outlawed drinks with less than 5 percent alcoholic content.

On Thursday, dozens of FPI and Islamic People’s Forum (FUI) members rallied in front of the Home Ministry in Jakarta and stoned the office, damaging office facilities.

Protesters met with ministry officials on Friday to apologize for the violence. The ministry had filed a police report over the vandalism, Moenek said, despite the apology.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Baharudin Djafar said police detectives had begun investigating the case and had interrogated three witnesses.