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ours after the government announced on Wednesday its decision to revoke the status of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia (HTI) as a legal entity, the National Police vowed to take strict measures to ensure the hard-line group would not be allowed to campaign for the creation of a caliphate in the country.

National Police spokesman Insp. Gen. Setyo Wasisto said this meant that the organization was now banned from conducting any activities, including rallies.

“If [members] insist on staging rallies on behalf of HTI, the police will disperse them,” he said.

He added that police would also look into the possibility of filing criminal charges against HTI members who defied the ban and continued campaigning for the creation of a caliphate.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Law and Human Rights Ministry issued a decree banning HTI for spreading an ideology that contradicts with Pancasila values.

The decision to ban the group came only a week after the government issued a controversial regulation in lieu of law (Perppu), granting it the power to disband organizations without due process.

“By revoking [HTI’s] status as a legal entity, we declare its disbandment in accordance with Article 80A of the Perppu,” the ministry’s legal administration director-general, Freddy Harris, told reporters.

Even though HTI claims to follow Pancasila as its ideology, the group’s activities were not in line with Pancasila, he added.

“It acts against its own statute. Our decision to revoke its legal status is based on extensive consideration, long examination and input from relevant institutions,” he said.

The Perppu, which has divided Islamic groups and human rights organizations, was issued amid concerns over rising ideologies that seek to abolish Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution, which serve as the legal and philosophical basis of Indonesia’s pluralism.

It replaces the 2013 Law on Mass Organizations, which stipulates a lengthy process in disbanding an organization and days of legal proceedings. Unlike the 2013 law, the Perppu stipulates that members of organizations who commit actions deemed contradictory to Pancasila are subject to prosecution.

Critics fear the Perppu would be prone to abuse, while its supporters claim that such a law was necessary to protect national unity.

HTI has said that it will challenge the government’s decision.

“The government has violated its own regulation. According to the Perppu, we should be given administrative sanctions first,” the group’s spokesman, Ismail Yusanto said, adding that the organization had not received any notice so far.

Article 61 of the Perppu regulates that the government should send an official notice to an organization prior to imposing a ban.

Yusril Ihza Mahendra, former law and human rights minister, and a lawyer for HTI, said the group would challenge the ban at the State Administrative Court (PTUN). It would be the second legal step by HTI to survive the ban.

On Tuesday, the group filed a judicial review petition to challenge the Perppu at the Constitutional Court, arguing that the law was vague and contradicted the freedom of assembly principle, which is guaranteed by the Constitution.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has defended the ban, denying it was an authoritarian decision because the government had consulted several parties, including clerics, Islamic organizations and relevant agencies.

“The government carried out a thorough examination and also received input from many elements, including ulemas [Muslim clerics],” Jokowi said

Some human rights activists have strongly criticized the government’s move, calling it “draconian.”

“Banning any organization strictly on ideological grounds, including Pancasila, is a draconian action that undermines the right of freedom of association and expression, which Indonesians have fought hard to establish since the end of the Soeharto dictatorship in 1998,” said Human Rights Watch researcher Andreas Harsono.

After more than 30 years campaigning for the establishment of an Islamic caliphate in Indonesia, HTI has finally gained enough followers to create alarm in the world’s largest Muslim population.

As a fringe organization, HTI was permitted to freely spread its Islamist ideology — which denounced democracy as a flawed political system and hailed an Islamic caliphate as the solution to the nation’s problems — through publications and religious organizations at some of Indonesia’s best universities, such as the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the Bogor Agricultural Institute.

It is unclear how large the group is, but analysts estimate that HTI membership ranges between 500,000 and 1 million adherents. The group has declined to confirm the figure, revealing only that it had branches in 34 provinces and in hundreds of cities and regencies across the country, from Aceh to Papua.