At least one Islamic boarding school on Java is tightening identification requirements for students, especially those from Malaysia.

A boarding school in Kediri, East Java, run by the Lembaga Dakwah Islam Indonesia (LDII), has recently implemented new policies requiring full identification for students intending to take short courses during Ramadhan, and generally. H Kuncoro of the LDII says:

Every student who will study here has to provide full identification documents as put out by the authorities. Above all for Malaysian students, because we don’t want this school to be infiltrated by terrorists.

and

We will not hesitate to refuse applications when the individual’s identity is less than clear. Even if he is from Indonesia if he doesn’t have an ID card or a letter from his neighbourhood head then we will surely refuse him.

Foreign students must have a letter from their government authorising their travel and study plans, he said. Vice principal of the school, Ibrahim, said:

In the past we weren’t as strict as this. Even if someone from the school knows him, if he doesn’t have his ID in order, then we won’t take him.

The school has about 2000 full time students at the school, which has stood since 1952. Nine of them are Malaysians, six of them women. Kuncoro says he is certain none of them are connected to the terrorist group led by Noordin M. Top, a Malaysian long active in Indonesia.