Clean-Up Against Suspected Terrorists Continues

KOMPAS/HERU SRI KUMORO

A bomb is detonated at an open area in Medokan Ayu, Rungkut, Surabaya, on Tuesday (15/5/2018). The bomb was confiscated from the home of suspected terrorist Tri Murtiono.

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JAKARTA, KOMPAS — Efforts to eradicate terrorist networks continue. Besides capturing a number of suspected terrorists, the government has also taken down hundreds of accounts on social media, as well as instant messaging and video sharing services because of their content promoting hate speech, radicalism and terrorism.

However, terrorist acts such as the bombing of three churches in Surabaya, East Java, on Sunday and then at the Surabaya Police Headquarters the next day, did not happen suddenly. Educational institutions also need receive attention because they are vulnerable to being infiltrated by intolerant and radical groups.

A number of places

The arrests of suspected terrorists by the Densus 88 counterterrorism squad on Tuesday (15/05/2018) were not only made in East Java. Several suspected terrorists in Tanjungbalai city and Asahan regency in North Sumatra were also arrested.

As of 8 p.m. last night, 18 suspected terrorists have been arrested in East Java, increasing from the previous 13 people. The last five people were arrested in Surabaya, Malang and Pasuruan.

East Java Police Chief Insp. Gen. Machfud Arifin said the main target of the arrests was to discern who had taught a radical ideology to Dita Oeprianto, leader of the hard-line Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD) in Surabaya, who was also the bomber of one of the churches on Sunday.

According to Machfud, Dita is believed to have belonged to the same group as the suicide bomber involved in the Surabaya Police attack, Tri Murtiono, as well as three other owners of bombs found in Surabaya and Sidoarjo, namely Anton Ferdiantono, Budhi Satrijo, and Agus Satria Widodo.

Dropped from circulation

Meanwhile, the government has removed hundreds of social media accounts because they contained hate speech, radicalism, and terrorism.

According to Communications and Informatics Minister Rudiantara, these consisted of 280 accounts on Telegram, about 300 accounts on Facebook and Instagram, and about 30 accounts on Twitter.

For Youtube, Rudiantara said 60 percent of about 250 potentially problematic channels have not been taken down. Meanwhile on Facebook and Instagram, 150 problematic accounts remain.

The government, Rudiantara further said, also improved its handling of reports of terror-related content. The removal of potentially problematic social media accounts is conducted every two hours.

Facebook Indonesia public policy head Ruben Hattari expressed his appreciation for the swift actions taken by the government.

He pointed out that Facebook has a set of community standards that outline acceptable and prohibited content.

"Any content uploaded on Facebook, ranging from statuses, comments, videos or links can be checked whether it complies with the community standards or not. The users can report [the content] directly to us or via the complaint method to the Communications and Information Ministry," Ruben said.

Danny Ardianto from Google Indonesia said that Google also had a content policy.

Education

Ahmad Faiz Zainuddin, an alumnus of state senior high school SMA 5 Surabaya, who also knows the suspected suicide bomber Dita Oepriyanto, said that learning from his experience with Dita, terrorism prevention can be done by providing a thorough religious understanding to high school students and students who are still looking for identity and ideological values.

If the search for ideology finds a good teacher or mentor, the teaching of violence will not grow.

"It is not enough to condemn the bombers. Prevention should begin early, when [young people] are looking for an identity or ideology," Faiz said in a discussion held on Tuesday by the Wahid Foundation.

Faiz\'s article, entitled "From an Islam That Is Grim and Frightening, Toward an Islam That Is Full of Love and Friendliness", has gone viral on social media.

Wahid Foundation director Yenny Zannuba Wahid said that in her survey of some 1,500 respondents who were asked whether the bomb in Kampung Melayu, East Jakarta in 2017 was a form of jihad, only 2.2 percent of respondents agreed. Moreover, 24.6 percent of the respondents were in the group of "having no attitude or no answer".

This means that besides sympathizers, there are also parts of Indonesian society who are hesitant to reject acts of terrorism.

(Kompas Team)