JAKARTA, Indonesia -- Home Affairs Minister Gamawan Fauzi said on Thursday (July 25th) that the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) is a registered body that can be disbanded if it breaches the new Mass Organisations Law, rather than an informal network over which the state had no control, local media reported.

Gamawan was countering a comment by Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam who said the group was not a registered organisation.

"It's a mass organisation. Here [at the Home Affairs Ministry], it's already registered," Gamawan said at the Presidential Palace, according to The Jakarta Globe.

FPI members conducted a raid last week against entertainment they deemed inappropriate during Ramadan, and while being chased out of town in Kendal, Central Java, they struck a motorcycle, killing the pregnant woman on board and injuring her husband and three others.

Gamawan said it is up to the local government to act. "The law stated that a governor should take action if the incident occurred in the province. If it happened in a district or a city, the district head or the mayor has to handle it. If it happened in the national level, then I would take action."

Akil Mochtar, chairman of the Constitutional Court (MK), told Obor News that if the FPI is disturbing the public interest, the government should ban the organisation. "The government should prohibit FPI with law enforcement. Indonesia as a state must protect the interests of its citizens," he said.