"They surrendered to the police at 01.00 a.m. local time on early Sunday," Jakarta Metropolitan Police Spokesperson Sen.Coms.Yusri Yunus told journalists.
The suspects who had shown up for questioning are head of the events' organizing committee Haris Ubaidillah; secretary of the events' organizing committee Ali bin Alwi Alatas; and Idrus, who was in charge of the events' rundown, he said.
Accompanied by their team of lawyers, Ubaidillah, Ali, and Idrus met with the police investigators at 02.00 a.m. local time after their rapid tests showed "non-reactive" results, he said.
The police investigators still waited for the coming of FPI commander in charge of security affairs Maman Suryadi, and FPI's general chairman responsible for the events Sobri Lubis who had also been named suspects of the health protocol breach case, he said.
"We hope they will immediately surrender. The Jakarta Metropolitan Police give them two options. Either they surrender or get arrested," he said.
This week, the Jakarta police had named six people suspects of the violation of health protocos during the events at Islam Defenders Front (FPI) leader Habib Rizieq Shihab's home and the FPI headquarters in Petamburan, Jakarta, last month.
They are Habib Rizieq Shihab; Haris Ubaidillah; Ali bin Alwi Alatas; Maman Suryadi; Sobri Lubis; and Idrus.
The Jakarta Metropolitan Police also appealed to the government's authorized agencies to impose 20-day travel bans on Shihab and five others to prevent them from traveling abroad.
Shihab who was charged for violating Articles 160 and 216 of Criminal Law had shown up on Saturday while five others that the police investigators charged for violating Article 93 of the 2018 Health Quarantine Law did not come.
Regarding the Shihab case, the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI) pressed for applying fair law enforcement in the case of this well-respected FPI leader to avoid any offense to the public sense of justice in communities.
"Law must truly be used as an instrument for educating and not as an instrument for targeting," MUI Deputy Chairman Anwar Abbas had earlier stated.
The police's decision to name Shihab as a suspect for violating health protocols in holding events that led to the congregation of people must reflect the use of law as an instrument to edify rather than target, Abbas stated.
Abbas emphasized that law enforcement against Shihab and his men over the cases of holding crowd-drawing events must also be imposed fairly and equally on other community members found breaching the government's COVID-19 protocols in the country.
Failing to implement the principle of fair law enforcement and public sense of justice would only create unrest among members of the public, he cautioned.
"To this end, we hope, without exception, that all people or parties that have breached the COVID-19 rules, as the police have accused Habib Rizieq Shihab of having done, would also be named suspects," he affirmed.
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Translator: Andi F, Fianda R, Rahmad
Editor: Suharto
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