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Power and legal immunity: Alleged rape at Jombang boarding school
A 22-year-old woman accused the director of the Shiddiqiyyah boarding school in Losari village, Ploso subdistrict, where she was studying, of raping her in 2017. The student was expelled from the school in early 2018 after trying to report the rape to the director's father, who was the founder of the school.
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Illustration of gender-based violence (Shutterstock/rudall30)
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rape case allegedly involving the son of a prominent Muslim cleric in Jombang, East Java, has advanced into a new phase with the Shiddiqiyyah Islamic boarding school, which was founded by the suspect’s father, resisting the legal process.
On Jan. 14, more than 500 of the Shiddiqiyyah Islamic boarding school students and members of the Shiddiqiyyah tarekat (spiritual fraternity) flocked to the street in front of the Jombang Police office to show their support for the suspect, Moch Subchi Azal Tsani, 39. He is the son of Mochammad Muhtar, 91, an influential Muslim cleric, who is the founder of the school and is the supreme imam of the Shiddiqiyyah tarekat.
The next day, the East Java Police announced it was taking the case from the Jombang Police.
“We hope that Jombang Police can work more effectively in maintaining social order and security in the regency while its law enforcement task, the rape case, is being taken over by East Java Police investigators,” East Java Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Trunoyudo Wisnu Andiko told The Jakarta Post on Jan. 29.
A 22-year-old woman identified only as MNK accused Moch Subchi of raping her in 2017 when she was studying at the Shiddiqiyyah school in Losari village, Ploso subdistrict. She was expelled from the school in early 2018 after trying to report the rape case to Subchi’s father.
With assistance from women activists in her home town in Central Java and a Jombang women's crisis center, in October last year MNK reported her accusations to the Jombang Police. On Nov. 12, the Jombang Police issued a notice about the start of their investigations (SPDP), in which Subchi was named a suspect and charged with raping and molesting MNK.
The police charged Subchi under articles 285 and 294 of the Criminal Code, which carry maximum sentences of 12 years' and seven years' imprisonment, respectively, upon conviction.
