Civil society groups earlier voiced concern that the government’s unilateral move went against the principles of democracy and the rule of law, as it did not involve the courts, and that it set a bad precedent that could further curtail freedom of assembly and association.

A researcher has cautioned that, as a violent group that mobilized Islamic rhetoric and identity, the FPI would exist as long as Indonesia continued to maintain an “illiberal democracy” characterized by the relative absence of the rule of law and the widespread use of violence, including violence by non-state actors.

“It is impossible to dissolve an ideology. People will stick to what they believe in, even if [expressing it] is forbidden by the authorities,” sociologist Abdil Mughis Mudhoffir, a postdoctoral visiting researcher at the University of Melbourne’s Asia Institute, told The Jakarta Post on Sunday. “In fact, repressive methods will generate public sympathy and make [its] members more militant in fighting for what they believe in.”

Abdil added that vigilante groups garnered support from the “militant lower class”, which they responded to directly by tapping into the anxieties of the urban poor and the unemployed, while they had also proven useful for the elite.

Read also: Government bans FPI activities

The government on Dec. 30, 2020 issued a joint ministerial decree banning the hardline group and its activities on the grounds that its organizational license had expired, it had engaged in vigilantism, its statute contradicted the Pancasila state ideology and some of its members had been implicated in terrorism. Under the decree, signed by six senior officials including the home minister and the National Police chief, the FPI became the latest mass organization or movement to be banned in Indonesia for contradicting Pancasila and the 1945 Constitution.

Popular

State-sanctioned intolerance

Indonesia opts against visa fee hike to spur tourism

Why EV makers choose Vietnam, not nickel-rich Indonesia