JAKARTA – A firebrand Indonesian cleric was today jailed for holding sermons and other gatherings that drew tens of thousands of followers, breaking Covid-19 restrictions in the world’s biggest Muslim-majority nation.
The eight-month prison term handed to Rizieq Shihab comes several months after Indonesia outlawed his influential hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in the aftermath of a deadly shoot-out between police and his followers.
Today, the East Jakarta district court jailed Rizieq for urging supporters to attend sermons, a celebration of Prophet Muhammad’s birthday, and his daughter’s wedding. All drew huge crowds in a country hit hard by the pandemic.
“The defendant has been found guilty of violating health protocols,” presiding judge Suparman Nyompa told the hearing.
Rizieq was also fined 20 million rupiah (RM5,800).
His jail sentence will be reduced to three months to account for time already served, said the court.
Five other senior FPI members each got eight-month jail terms for organising the mass gatherings.
About 2,300 security personnel were deployed around the courthouse to keep Rizieq’s supporters at a distance, with nearly two dozen briefly detained, reported local media.
Rizieq – who has served jail time in the past, including for an attack by FPI members on an interfaith gathering in 2008 – denied the latest charges, and said he may appeal.
His arrest last December came as police here shot dead six FPI followers in a highway gun battle that authorities described as an act of self-defence – a claim disputed by the group.
The charismatic Islamic leader fled to Saudi Arabia shortly after police named him as a suspect in a pornography case in 2017, and he remained in self-imposed exile for three years. Those charges have been dropped.
When he returned to Indonesia last November, Rizieq was welcomed by tens of thousands of followers at Jakarta airport, in violation of a Covid-19 ban on gatherings.
FPI is notorious for targeting nightclubs and other establishments it deems “immoral”, and has also attacked minority Muslim sects it considers “deviant”.
Rizieq was among the main figures behind mass rallies in 2016 against the then Jakarta governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, over allegations that he insulted the Quran.
Basuki, who is Christian, was sentenced to two years in prison for blasphemy. – AFP, May 27, 2021
