Jakarta - Indonesia's parliament has backed a government de-radicalization programme aimed at stopping the creation of hard-line Islamic groups and countering terrorism, a local report said Tuesday.
Lawmakers urged the government to focus on poverty alleviation and unemployment to deny radical groups and terrorist networks propaganda material to recruit members in the name of Islam, The Jakarta Post reported.
Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-majority nation, though the vast majority of its 190 million faithful practice a moderate form of the religion. The country has been the victim of four major terrorist attacks since 2002 by Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Indonesian-based terrorist network linked to al-Qaeda.
"De-radicalization is urgently needed to improve people's awareness of terrorism and ensure the understanding of religion and their teachings," lawmaker Theo Sambuaga said during a parliament
commission hearing with government security and counter-terrorism officials on Monday.
Although Indonesia has numerous Islamic groups that are categorized as hard-line or radical, none openly support terrorism. However, the country's security forces are constantly stalking a small cell from JI that is allegedly responsible for terrorist bombings on the resort island of Bali and in Jakarta that have killed more than 240 people.
Malaysian Noordin M Top, perhaps the most wanted man in South-East Asia, continues to elude security forces who have been hunting him across Indonesia for more than four years.
Indonesia's security forces have largely taken a persuasive approach to less radical elements of JI, but came under fire recently for using force to kill or capture some 29 militants in Central
Sulawesi province. A total of 16 people were killed during separate shoot-outs in January between a police counter-terrorism unit and alleged JI members.
In addition, lawmakers said the public was increasingly worried that a series of boat and air lane disasters in recent weeks were caused by terrorist attacks, thought authorities have ruled that out.
"From a recent tour of several provinces, we found many people have suspicions that terrorism is behind the increasing number of sea and air accidents," said lawmaker Andreas Parera.
Ansyaad Mbai, Indonesia's counter-terrorism chief, told lawmakers that mainstream religious groups were united in preventing radical elements from twisting Islam to justify terrorism.
