A group of prominent Muslim academics vowed on Thursday to fight the creeping radicalization of university students taking place on campuses across the country.

Ismail Hasani, a researcher at the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy and a lecturer at Jakarta’s Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University (UIN), said the academics had formed an association to deal with the threat.

“Radicalization in universities is nothing new,” he said.

“It’s been going on for years, but it was largely ignored and no serious action was taken to curb it.”

He said the newly formed group, Academics Guiding the Nation’s Pillars (APPi Bangsa), sought to be a national movement, covering not just Islamic universities, but also other private and state universities across Indonesia. Read more