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Indonesians reject IS, survey says
Fighting for peace: A junior high school student from the Muhammadiyah Student Association joins in a peaceful 'Save Indonesia' demonstration in Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday
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Fighting for peace: A junior high school student from the Muhammadiyah Student Association joins in a peaceful 'Save Indonesia' demonstration in Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday. (Antara/Zabur Karuru) (Antara/Zabur Karuru)
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span class="inline inline-center">Fighting for peace: A junior high school student from the Muhammadiyah Student Association joins in a peaceful 'Save Indonesia' demonstration in Surabaya, East Java, on Wednesday. (Antara/Zabur Karuru)
The Islamic State (IS) movement has no place in Indonesia and most of Indonesia's citizens do not want the group's presence in the country, according to a survey conducted by Saiful Mujani Research and Consulting (SMRC).
In a press statement released on Friday, the survey revealed that over 62 percent of 1,220 respondents were aware IS. Of that figure, over 95 percent rejected the presence of IS in Indonesia. 0.3 percent of respondents wanted to see the Islamic State movement established in Indonesia.
Up to 90 percent of the respondents aware of the group saw IS as the threat to the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia and the same amount disagreed with the terror group's ideology.
The survey, conducted between Dec. 10 and Dec. 20 in all provinces, also indicated that the rejection of the Islamic group was spread evenly across gender, ethnicity, religion, region and occupation.
"In other words, IS is the enemy of the people of Indonesia," Djayadi Hanan, president director of the consulting company, said in the statement.
These findings are in line with data released by the US-based Pew Research Center in November 2015. The data, collected from 11 countries with significant Muslim populations, including Indonesia, overwhelmingly expressed a negative view of IS.
However, the SMRC survey also indicated that there were sizable groups of people who had little information on the terrorist group.
The survey revealed that around 63 percent of people with an elementary-level education and those who earned less than Rp 1 million ($72) a month did not know what IS was. Similarly, around 60 percent of female respondents above the age of 55, and 47 percent of respondents living in the villages, were also unaware of the group.
Meanwhile, there were indications that the supporters of IS tended to come from younger age brackets in comparison to other age groups. Around four percent of 22-25 year-olds and five percent of people who were still in school or university and who knew of IS agreed with the group's position. (rin)
