JAKARTA - Abu Bakar Ba'asyir is the leader of the Al Mukmin Islamic Boarding School in Ngaruki Village, Sukoharjo, Central Java. He is considered a controversial and radical cleric. Most notably, Ba'asyir rejected the pledge of the sole principle of Pancasila. Based on the Anti-Subversion Law of 1963, Ba'asyir was accused. In another case, the 'amir' of the Indonesian Mujahidin Council was also involved in a series of acts of terrorism. This is the story of Abu Bakr Ba'asyir.
Launching the BBC, Ba'asyir graduated from the Gontor Islamic Boarding School in 1959. After that, Ba'asyir studied until he graduated from the Da'wah Faculty of Al Irsyad University, Solo in 1963. While studying, Ba'asyir was known to be actively involved in Islamic organizations. .
He was an activist for the Solo Islamic Student Association (HMI). From there, Ba'asyir then entered the management structure of the Al-Iryad Youth, the Indonesian Islamic Youth Movement, and the Islamic Student Da'wah Institute.
Entering the early 1970s, Ba'asyir began pioneering the establishment of an Islamic college, which would become the Al-Mukmin Islamic Boarding School in Ngruki Hamlet in 1972. The college occupies an area of eight thousand square meters.
Initially, the establishment of the college was focused on the activities of the Zuhr lecture recitation at the Surakarta Grand Mosque. However, after the overwhelming number of congregations, Ba'asyir and other teachers developed the recitation into Madrasah Diniyah.
Rejecting PancasilaIn less than a decade of establishing a boarding school, Ba'asyir was arrested by the New Order authorities. Together with his comrade in arms, Abdullah Sungkar, Ba'asyir is suspected of being involved in inciting the crowd to reject the single origin of Pancasila.
Not only that. Ba'asyir also forbade respect for the red and white flag. Respect for the flag, said Ba'asyir, is an act of shirk.
Quoted from the TEMPO Data and Analysis Center, in the book The Story of the Resistance and the Escape of Abu Bakar Ba'asyir Series I (2019), his colleague, Sungkar, according to the prosecutor in a lecture, January 1978, revealed: Pancasila is insignificant compared to the Quran. Because Pancasila is man-made, while the Quran is divine revelation.
According to the prosecutor, Ba'asyir often opposed the government. Ba'asyir disagrees with the flag-honoring ceremony every 17 August. Ba'asyir doesn't even want his students to join the ceremony.
As a result, Ba'asyir and Sungkar were sentenced to 19 years in prison by the Surakarta High Court. Upon appeal, his second sentence was reduced to 15 years. Ba'asyir spent four years in prison (1978-1982). Then, Ba'asyir received relief from being placed under house arrest.
On one occasion Ba'asyir fled to Malaysia. Instead of hiding, Ba'asyir in a neighboring country continued to foster the formation of the radical Jemaah Islamiyah movement. However, in the statement given by Ba'asyir himself, he did not admit to having formed any movement in Malaysia. Even so, Ba'asyir's name has been included in the report by the United States Intelligence Agency, the CIA.
From prison to prisonAfter settling in Malaysia, Ba'asyir returned to Indonesia during the collapse of the New Order (Orba) in 1998. Shortly thereafter, Ba'asyir was involved in the Indonesian Mujahidin Council (MMI).
The organization is known for its vision and mission of upholding Islamic law. In its climax, MMI held Congress I in Yogyakarta on August 8, 2002. In that congress Ba'asyir was elected as chairman of MMI.
Since then Ba'asyir has been arrested by the police many times. He repeatedly underwent trials and received prison sentences. Finally, on 19 October 2002, Ba'asyir was named a suspect in the Bali bombing.
The impact of a bomb explosion near the Sari Club, Kuta, Bali, 12 October 2002 (Twitter / National Museum Australia)
During the trial, Ba'asyir was found guilty and sentenced to prison terms of 2.6 years. Ba'asyir then served the sentence. However, Ba'asyir was again arrested by the police on charges of establishing and training an Al-Qaeda branch in Aceh.
At trial Ba'asyir was sentenced to guilt with a sentence of 15 years in prison in 2011. He even fought through legal mechanisms from cassation to review. The result was nil.
The place where Ba'asyir was detained is also known to be moving around. From what he was initially detained in Nusa Kambangan White Sand Prison (Cilacap) to Gunung Sindur Prison (Bogor).
Abu Bakar Ba'asyir has now served a 15-year sentence minus a 55-month remission. In the end, Ba'asyir was purely free from the Gunung Sindur Bohor Prison today, Friday, January 8, 2021.
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