For all the defending of Islam they and their supporters say they do, there have been plenty of allegations, backed by evidence, that the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) is nothing but a band of pay-for-hire preman (thugs).
Further evidence of FPI’s true nature could be seen in their early morning attack on the headquarters of another mass organization, the Indonesian General Society Movement (GMBI, an organization the Jakarta Post has described as “shady” and “a pay-for-hire band of bullies”), who they clashed with just yesterday.
On Thursday morning, hardliners consisting of members of the FPI and the GMBI clashed with each other and with police just outside the West Java Police HQ in Bandung, where the FPI’s spiritual leader Habib Rizieq Shihab was being questioned over a criminal report that he insulted the nation’s founding father Soekarno and the Pancasila state ideology.
While the FPI defended Habib Rizieq, the GMBI wanted to see him imprisoned for trying to tear apart the nation by creating rifts and divisions among religious and ethnic groups. After Habib Rizieq’s questioning was over, tension between the two groups reportedly escalated which led to the stabbing of an FPI member.
According to police, a mob of around 150 FPI members from the Ciampea, Bogor chapter descended on GMBI’s secretariat office in Ciampea and torched it to the ground in retaliation at around 3 am today.
“The incident resulted in a house and the GMBI secretariat office being destroyed in fire. There were no casualties,” West Java Police Spokesman Yusri Yunus wrote in a statement, as picked up by Vivanews today.
At least 20 people, whose group affiliations were not disclosed, were reportedly arrested.
When asked by Detik, FPI Secretary General Sobri Lubis this morning said that he wasn’t aware of the incident.
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