REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA -- Jakarta's Metro Jaya Police Chief Inspector General M. Iriawan has opined that the people do not need hold a rally on Friday to defend ulema over the case involving Islam Defenders Front (FPI) Head Habib Rizieq Shihab.
"What is the need to hold another rally?" Iriawan noted here, Thursday.
He denied accusations that the Jakarta Police had attempted to criminalize Habib Rizieq over the case of alleged pornographic chats and photo.
The police investigators have sought opinion and information from 26 experts and 50 witnesses regarding the snapshot of the chats, so it would be impossible to criminalize Habib Rizieq, according to Iriawan.
The former West Java Police chief said that the legal case concerns Habib Rizieq as an individual and has nothing to do with his status as an ulema or Islamic scholar.
"It is a coincidence that the perpetrator is an ulema, but there is no justification (to generalize it because) there are still many ulemas who face no legal problems," he noted.
Also read: Interpol has not receive red notice submission for Rizieq
On May 29, 2017, Habib Rizieq was officially named as a suspect in the pornographic case after screenshots of sexually explicit WhatsApp chats that allegedly took place between Shihab and a treason suspect Firza Husein went viral.
Husein has also been named a suspect in the case and was arrested on May 16 for the same after she underwent 12 hours of questioning at the Jakarta Police headquarters.
Speaking in connection with the planned Friday rally, Iriawan said the Jakarta Police did not receive a report about the Friday rally, and he has urged the community to not participate in it.
Chairman of the 212 Presidium Ansufri Idrus Sambo remarked that the rally, to start from the Istiqlal Grand Mosque, will go on and said he has informed the police of the plan.
The 212 action was a peaceful rally attended by around five to seven million Indonesian Muslims on December 2, 2016, to demand justice in a blasphemy case involving the then Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok).
The North Jakarta District Court sentenced Ahok to two years imprisonment in a blasphemy case for insulting the Islamic Holy Book of Alquran.
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