The junior high school’s head of committee, Dadang, told The Jakarta Post that the students, who were in their final year, had abstained from the activities in question since they first started at the school.

“We had organized a series of meetings to discuss this issue, but their parents keep defending their actions by saying they did it because of their beliefs. However, they want their kids to keep studying at this school,” he said.

Dadang added that the first meeting occurred on Nov. 20, while the last was on Monday. The meetings were also attended by representatives of the Batam Education Agency, the Religious Affairs Ministry, the Batam Education Council, the Batam Police, the Indonesian Military and the Batam Child Protection Commission (KPPAD).

“We cannot tolerate this behavior because it has come under a public spotlight,” Dadang said, adding that the school decided to expel the students because it was not able to handle them anymore.

Meanwhile, the head of Batam Education Agency, Hendri Arulan, said all those who attended the meetings agreed with the decision to expel the students. 

“We have decided to expel them because of our concerns regarding their Indonesian nationalism,” Hendri said. 

He said this was his first time encountering such a case, even though there were many Jehovah’s Witnesses in the city.  

“The refusal to salute the national flag or sing the national anthem is against our obligation as Indonesians,” Hendri said. 

A KPPAD commissioner, Erry Syahrial, said the expelled students had the option of finishing their studies through the Kejar Paket B equivalence test to get their secondary education certificates.

“We already gave them an alternative to finish their study through Kejar Paket B, so their rejection of respecting the national flag and singing the national anthem won’t spread to other children. Those children are the victims of their parents’ teaching,” Erry said. 

Erry explained that her institution recorded 200 children now in school in Batam who were Jehovah’s Witnesses, but she said had not received other reports about similar behavior from those students’ schools.

However, she revealed that previously four students in SMP 21 had acted in a similar manner to the two recently expelled students. Two of the four decided to quit early on, while the other two kept attending their schools until the final year without changing their stance toward the national flag and anthem.

The chairman of the Riau Island Interfaith Communication Forum, Chablullah Wibisono, said there were aspects of every religion that had the potential to lead adherents to go against the nation’s values. 

“We will discuss this issue with the Indonesian Communion of Churches [PGI] so we can come up with a solution by which we can practice our religion and respect the country at the same time,” Chablullah said. 

Separately, the spokesperson of Riau Island Police, Sr. Comr. Saptono Erlangga, said that he would continue to investigate. 

“Since this happened because of the religious dogmas of their beliefs, we have to examine this further so we can determine if it was part of a treason attempt or of not recognizing the state,” Erlangga said. (dpk)

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