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We do not promote radicalism, say blocked Islamic sites
The chief editors of seven blocked sites deemed to have promoted radicalism protested the blockage of their sites by the Communications and Information Ministry, saying that their sites have nothing to do radicalism
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T
he chief editors of seven blocked sites deemed to have promoted radicalism protested the blockage of their sites by the Communications and Information Ministry, saying that their sites have nothing to do radicalism.
On Tuesday, the chief editors sent a letter to the ministry asking them to remove the bans.
"With this, we as representatives of the blocked sites, file a protest against the blockage of our sites because our sites do not contain negative content as stipulated by Ministerial Regulation No.19/2014," aqlislamiccenter.com chief editor Agus Soelarto said during a meeting with ministry officials on Jl. Medan Merdeka Barat, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday.
The ministry instructed Internet service providers (ISP) on Monday to block19 sites after receiving a request from the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT).
"The BNPT sent the request on March 24, then we processed it and deemed the request to be positive," ministry spokesperson Ismail Cawidu said on Tuesday.
There were 26 sites requested to be blocked by the BNPT, but two of them were found to be duplicates.
"Moreover, four of them were already inactive, while another one had already been blocked [when the BNPT sent the request]," Ismail said. "That left us with 19 sites."
The 19 sites are arrahmah.com, voa-islam.com, ghur4ba.blogspot.com, panjimas.com, thoriquna.com, dakwatuna.com,kafilahmujahid.com, an-najah.net, muslimdaily.net, hidayatullah.com, salam-online.com, aqlislamiccenter.com, kiblat.net,dakwahmedia.com, muqawamah.com, lasdipo.com, gemaislam.com, eramuslim.com and daulahislam.com.
Ismail said the ministry was open to input and urged people to file reports with the ministry if they came across sites promoting radical views.
However, according to Ubaidillah Salman from salam-online.com, none of the reported sites support radicalism.
"We don't even report about ISIS. What is ISIS? It doesn't matter to us," he said on Tuesday, referring to the Islamic State (IS) movement, also referred to as ISIS.
Ubaidillah added that the sites merely collected news from other agencies, such as Antara, BBC, AFP, Reuters and CNN.
"Do any of the aforementioned media outlets promote radicalism? I don't think so," he said.
The representatives of the sites are planning to meet with the BNPT to ask for clarification on Tuesday.(+++)
