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What is the real agenda of the Islamic Defenders F r o nt and have its members been allowed to get away with their strong-arm tactics because they are backed by powerful forces in the police and the military? The question is often asked, but answers are hard to come by.

In recent months, the hard-line group, also known as the FPI, has led efforts to stop a supposed Christianization of Bekasi, and last week it was accused of inciting another group to break up a meeting between lawmakers and constituents in East Java, claiming the gathering was a reunion of the banned Indonesian Communist Party (PKI).

Lawmakers and moderates have called for the FPI to be banned on the grounds that it is too radical and a threat to the state. This week, Eva Kusuma Sundari, a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), claimed the group was “part of the conflict management strategy the Indonesian military exercises to maintain its power.”

Edwin Partogi, from the political, legal and security advocacy division of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday that the formation of paramilitary groups such as the FPI were linked to the National Police and the Armed Forces to help quell student demonstrations during the downfall of Suharto in 1998.

“Support [from the military and police] dropped off as the FPI gained more autonomy,” he said. “The structure of the Army and the police has also changed.”

Noor Huda Ismail, an expert on extremism, said that during an interview with FPI leader Habib Rizieq two years ago, he confirmed that three Army generals had helped found the group.

Partogi suggested that although the organization itself now had its own agenda, it could still be wielded by state institutions. “There were examples where it seemed that they were used to limit freedom when that freedom was seen as a threat to the state,” he said.

In several cases, he noted, police officers had actually stood by and allowed FPI vigilantes to intimidate others and engage in violent behavior.

During the incident in East Java, lawmakers complained that police did nothing while members of a group linked to the FPI broke up the meeting. The National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) said this week it would investigate.

Meanwhile, FPI secretary general Ahmad Shabri Lubis denied that his group had any links to the police or the military. “That is a lie fabricated by those who support neo-communism and neo-liberalism,” he said. “They want society to hate us, but in reality, we have people from new areas requesting to start their own FPI branches.”

FPI’s aggressive expansion is most evident on the outskirts of the capital, particularly in Bekasi, where the group has compelled officials to tear down a statue it did not like and begun a campaign to bring in Shariah law.

Ismail said the FPI and other radical Islamic organizations shared a similar agenda to enforce their brand of Islam on communities, and had no qualms about using violence and undemocratic means to achieve that goal.