Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia Melanjutkan Kehidupan Islam
The current revision the Bill on Terrorism by the Parliament is made after the old law is considered not longer sufficient to be used as legal basis in combating terrorism. The Delegation of HTI, together with other Islamic groups such as Perti, al-Ittihadiyah and JAS, met with the head of Inquiry Committee of the parliament in the discussion of the bill of terrorism Muhammad Syafi’i or better known as Romo. On that occasion, the Spokesman of HTI, Ismail Yusanto, made several important points in relation to the discussion of the bill.
The first thing is the framework of the issue of terrorism, which is based on the framework of the West. Honestly, the issue of terrorism started to appear, and became the the world problem after President Bush in his famous speech following the events of 911 divided the world into two sides: “Either you are with us or with the terrorists “. In practice, those who are called terrorists are the one(s) or group(s) opposed to US interests, as can be seen from the list of FTO (Foreign Terrorist Organization) made by the US State Ministry, in which 90 % are Islamic organizations, including Hamas.
The second is the problem of the definition. Unfortunately, the definition of who should define the exact meaning of terrorism is still unclear until now. The unclear definition of terrorism makes the handling of terrorism uneasy and hypocritical which tends to be ambiguous. If terrorism is defined as the actions of individuals or groups in achieving the goals of using violence and raises widespread fears as referred to in Article 14 paragraph 1 of the Prevention of Terrorism (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1984, then it should be applied to all individuals or groups, even nations, which are achieving their goals by using force that can categorized of terrorists. However, the reality is different.
Therefore, Ismail says, it is important to have a clear framework and definition of terrorism, which is independent, apart from the biased interests of the West. In the draft of Terrorism Bill, terrorism is referred to anyone who joins the organization that carries on disintegration or separatism in other countries.
However, when the fact is fabricated terrorism, then we are not dealing with the terrorists, but those who have been creating the terrorists. A clear financial and operational audit should be conducted against Indonesian Densus 88 the counter terrorism squad as there are many indications that their anti-terrorism operations have been conducted improperly, even leading to what is called as fabricated terrorism.
There is a rising expectation in the improvement of the handling of the issue of terrorism in Indonesia which has taken so many victims, including the effort to prevent this country from falling too far in the so-called ‘the war on terrorism’ which is essentially the war on Islam.
