Posted on 12/20/2003 10:23:18 AM PST by miltonim
Fight until this country is governed by Syariah law
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Inside a jail here, hundreds of people dressed in Muslim garb gathered round a mosque and listened intently to the words of a bespectacled, elderly man.
“Live an honourable life. Fight until this country is governed by Syariah law,” said Abubakar Ba’asyir to shouts of “Allahu Akhbar” during a breaking of the fast in the holy month of Ramadan in October.
Abubakar, 65, the Indonesian Muslim cleric accused by foreign governments of being the spiritual leader of regional terrorist group Jemaah Islamiah (JI), continues to draw people to him from behind bars.
Out of the large crowd, about 500 of them were fellow inmates. Abubakar has only been at the Salemba prison for five months.
Previously, he was held at the national police headquarters where he complained the presence of women and separatist Maluku leaders within his vicinity “disturbed” his worship to God.
Dressed in his usual sarong, white shirt and skullcap, Abubakar was in good spirits – he kept smiling and appeared to be pleased to receive so many visitors.
“Thanks be to God, I am well-treated here both by Muslims and non-Muslims,” he said.
In September, a district court sentenced him to four years’ jail for plotting to overthrow the government, forging documents and immigration violations.
Prosecutors had sought 15 years for the treason charges.
Abubakar was cleared of primary charges of involvement in terrorism and of leading JI which is said to be linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network.
JI is accused of funding, planning and executing last year’s Bali bombings which killed 202 and the Jakarta Marriott Hotel bombing last August in which 12 people died.
On Dec 1, an appeal court cut Abubakar’s sentence by one year to three years and overturned the treason conviction against him.
Since entering prison, Abubakar has been teaching his fellow prisoners how to read the Quran at the penitentiary’s mosque.
Within a short time, he managed to draw around 400 to 500 prisoners, out of a total population of 2,700, to his classes.
“He teaches the prisoners how to read the Quran. There is nothing radical in his teachings,” said prison official Arif Gunawan.
But Gunawan admitted that Abubakar has been able to draw many people compared with other clerics who have taught in the prison.
“I guess that’s because he is charismatic and well known,” said Gunawan.
Abubakar’s prison audience appears to hold him with the same reverence as his students from the Al Mukmin religious boarding school at Nguruki, in Central Java.
The leading figures in the Bali bombings were all graduates of Abubakar’s school.
However, Abubakar rejected the notion that his former students were terrorists.
“Maybe the steps taken by them (bombings) were not exactly right, but they are not terrorists. They are mujahids (warriors of God). They were attacking American interests, defending themselves and defending Islam,” he said.
He said the United States was an enemy as it sided with Israel to oppress Palestine as well as for having attacked Afghanistan and Iraq.
“For me, fighting America is the ultimate law, compulsory in Indonesia but my concept (of fighting America) is to break off diplomatic ties with America. Even though this may not change its foreign policies but it will give it less room to bully Indonesia,” he said.
Abubakar said what he called “the imperialistic” foreign policy of the United States would end up destroying it.
“This is already in the Quran and I have once written to Bush warning him not to kill Muslims. He (Bush) may be able to kill the followers of Islam but he can never kill Islam.
“My message to America is – the country must repent, stop being enemies with Islam. It is much better to make peace.”
Abubakar may be deprived of his freedom but his message continues to be heard loud and clear from behind the high walls of prison.
Prison has not dented his anger towards the United States and Jews.
Last week, on the first day of Aidilfitri, he was supposed to deliver a sermon entitled “Noble Living or Holy Death: A struggle against Jewish Zionism”.
The local daily Jakarta Post reported the sermon was cancelled at the last minute by prison authorities who claimed that Abubakar was suffering from a sore throat.
The sermon was printed into booklets and distributed among the inmates gathered there.
In the sermon, he reportedly called on his followers to stand against the enemies of Allah, like the US administration and its allies.
A policeman who investigated Abubakar’s case said the cleric needed to be re-educated.
“But re-educating a cleric like Abubakar is not easy – it requires time, strategy and a very clever religious person,” the officer said. The officer, however, was not too concerned with Abubakar’s drawing power in prison.
“In prison, people are probably drawn to him because they share the same fate – that of a prison inmate. They are just killing time. I am very sure that when the inmates are released, they will return to their respective paths in life. Only one or two may embrace his ideology,” the officer added.
Abubakar’s jailing drew protests from hardline Muslims in the country who view his imprisonment as undermining Muslims. His lawyers are appealing for his entire conviction to be overturned, saying his imprisonment was due to pressure from the US government and its lackeys.
“Now that the treason charges have been dropped and he (Abubakar) is convicted only for forgery, it is obvious that the three-year jail term is unreasonable – it is just an attempt to keep him in jail at any cost,” Abubakar’s lawyer, Mahendradatta, told The Star.
The police officer said Abubakar 's light jail sentence reflected the difficulty in unravelling JI’s network.
Some of the most incriminating evidence against Abubakar came from JI suspects detained in Singapore who testified through video conferencing via a satellite link-up.
“But because the witnesses were not present in court and testified via video conferencing, the evidence does not have a strong legal basis under the law here. If they were present in court, the outcome of Abubakar’s trial would have been very different,” said the officer.
The light sentence is because they sponsor and encourage terrorists.
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