FPI leader Habib Rizieq’s seemed oddly cooperative with police yesterday (perhaps influenced by a meeting with his old friend Coordinating Political, Legal, and Security Affairs Minister Wiranto) when he agreed to cancel the FPI’s previous plans to conduct a protest march (or rather “healthy walk“) on Saturday, replacing it with a mass prayer event at Istiqlal Mosque instead.
But that spirit of cooperation seems to have faded quickly. Rizieq was summoned by the West Java Police today to be questioned as a suspect for his alleged defamation of the state ideology of Pancasila and founding father Sukarno and so far he hasn’t shown up.
This is the second time the police summoned the FPI leader to be questioned as a suspect after he skipped another summons earlier this week. Police have said they will give him until midnight to answer their summons, but if he doesn’t then at 12:01 am they’re going to issue a warrant to have him be forcibly brought in for questioning.
Usually, when suspects fail to answer police summons in Indonesia, they just claim illness. But according to Rizieq’s lawyer, Kapitra Ampera, the FPI leader is not sick – he just thinks that answering the police summons would be… unconducive for next Wednesday election.
“[Rizieq] is fine. We just want to keep things conducive. We will be ready [for him to be questioned after the election,” Kapitra said as quoted by Kompas.
Rizieq’s lawyer said that he hoped the police would not forcibly pick up Rizieq as they have vowed to do if he doesn’t meet their midnight deadline, as they both have mutual respect for one another.
However, Kapitra said that if the police were to pick Rizieq up, they should send a helicopter.
“If you use a helicopter ok we’d consider it, but we ask that things be kept as conducive as they are now,” the lawyer said.
Well, that seems like an unlikely eventuality (he might have been trolling). It also seems unlikely that Rizieq will still answer their summons this late in the day.
If the police were to go looking for Rizieq in order to forcibly haul him into the station for interrogation, the question is whether he would go quietly or if he would try to have his FPI minions protect him in some way – an ugly scenario which would likely not be conducive at all.
