T

he police's promise to keep Ramadhan free of vigilante groups taking the law into their own hands has not been kept, as has been evident in the clash between local residents and Islam Defenders Front (FPI) members in the Central Java town of Kendal last week.

There would have been no room for the FPI to start its fires at will, as it used to do, had the police strictly enforced the law. In his message in response to the incident, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono ' and perhaps many of us ' identified a long-standing problem plaguing the police force when dealing with hard-line groups. This time around, the police should waste no time in taking actions against the FPI.

For the umpteenth time, the FPI has spread fear despite its claim to fight moral decadence, as it easily resorts to violence and vandalism. As happened in Kendal, members of the FPI from another Central Java town of Temanggung raided a red light district on account of Ramadhan. A clash broke out as local residents resisted the sweep. A van carrying FPI members hit a group of teachers, killing one of them, as the hard-liners escaped the angry mass.

The police have arrested three FPI members, including the van driver, but nobody has been held responsible for masterminding the raid. Investigators should go all out in searching for the 'intellectual actor' behind the Kendal incident and if necessary, those who agitated the FPI members to commit violence in the name of God.

FPI leaders have openly called for the use of violence, citing the police's inaction against prostitution, distribution of alcoholic beverages and other practices they deem as sinful, including homosexuality and adherence to Ahmadiyah beliefs. The question should be raised, however, as to why the FPI does not act against the rampant sex and drug trade in a certain part of Jakarta.

It is the FPI's acts of thuggery that matter because they endanger civilization. That it has refused to give up its violent campaign indicates that the law is not strictly upheld or there is a degree of omission by the state ' and hence offers no deterrence.

What deterrence could we expect if 12 FPI supporters only received between three and six months in jail for butchering three Ahmadiyah followers in Banten in 2011, or a suspended FPI leader in Bekasi was sentenced to only five and a half months' imprisonment for attacking a church minister and congregation member earlier that year?

Now that the President has ' in an unprecedented move ' asked for a zero tolerance attitude to be taken against violent groups like the FPI, the law enforcers should have no more reason to offer leniency by, among other things, handing down maximum sentences. A failure to get tough on these radicals will only encourage other groups to follow suit.

Disbanding hard-line groups, which is now possible thanks to the passage of the controversial Mass Organization Law, is neither effective nor democratic. The draconian move will only exacerbate radicalization or catapult hard-line groups to martyrdom and fame as victims of a perceived tyrannical state.