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REUTERS
JAKARTA
Indonesian police on Wednesday said they were investigating whether the controversial leader of a hardline Islamist group insulted the country's secular state ideology, as concern grows over the clout of fundamentalist groups.
National police chief Tito Karnavian has warned against creeping Islamic extremism in the country of 250 million, home to dozens of religious and ethnic groups, and where the vast majority of citizens practice a moderate form of Islam.
Police are questioning Habib Rizieq, head of the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), a key organiser of recent rallies by hundreds of thousands of Muslims against Jakarta's governor, an ethnic Chinese Christian, who is on trial over accusations that he insulted the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
"We have started a formal investigation...We may name him a suspect soon," said West Java police spokesman Yusri Yunus.
"Unfortunately, democracy is being misused by certain groups to limit other people's freedoms, for instance, by those with fundamentalist or Wahabi thinking who then target minorities," he added, referring to a puritanical strand of Islam originating in Saudi Arabia.
