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BENARNEWS- The night began as a celebration of academic achievement but ended in the latest shooting of civilians by security forces in Papua, Indonesia's remote easternmost province.

Local people were gathering in Timika, a city of about 120,000 in the lowlands of south-central Papua, to celebrate the graduation of Leonardus Tumuka, the first member of the Kamoro tribe to earn a doctorate.

There was Tifa Duduk – traditional drumming, singing and dancing – but an altercation with soldiers shattered the festive mood in the early morning hours on Aug. 28. A shooting ensued that killed two young men and wounded five other people.

A special team of the National Commission for Human Rights (Komnas HAM) has been sent to the region to investigate this and other incidents, in which members of the Indonesian security forces have allegedly shot and killed civilians. 

A tragic turn

The shooting occurred around 2 a.m., when a group of Kamoro people was gathering at St. Fransiskus Koperapoka church to prepare for the celebration, Gerry Okoware, a witness, told BenarNews.

According to him, two soldiers on a motorcycle rode up, waved guns and yelled, "Who hit our [army] members?"

Some women tried to get the soldiers to leave the church yard, and some young men joined the effort. Then, shots rang out.

Seven people were wounded, two fatally. Imanuel Herman Maurimau and Yulianus Okoware, both 23, died after being rushed to local hospitals.

Less than an hour before the shooting, an altercation took place when two other soldiers tried to enter the street, which had been blocked off for the festivities. 

"The two people were drunk, and they tried to break into the street closed by local people and police for the celebration," the bishop of Timika, Monsignor John Philip Saklil Pr, told BenarNews by phone from the city. Timika is a hub for Freeport Indonesia, the firm that operates the world's largest gold mine in nearby Tembagapura sub-district.

When an argument ensued between the soldiers and some young men at the scene, Kamoro elders, fearing that the incident might escalate, intervened to mediate the dispute.

The soldiers backed down and went away, but the two other servicemen on the motorbike rolled by some 40 minutes later, Sakil said.

'Protector of immoral criminals'

Within the past year there have been at least five cases of shootings of civilians in Papua by soldiers or members of the police force, according to the bishop. A total of eight people have died as a result.

"The cases have not yet been completely solved. In addition to a lack of transparency in handling the cases, it seems there is no good will or seriousness from police and army leadership. Therefore, the culprits have never been caught,"Saklil told BenarNews. 

The worst of these shootings occurred on Dec. 8, 2014, when four teenagers were allegedly shot and killed by members of the security forces, as hundreds of people were protesting outside a military installation in Enarotali, a town in Paniai regency. The crowd was riled up by reports that some servicemen had fought with some local teens the night before.

Among the other incidents, members of a mobile police brigade and some soldiers were allegedly involved in a shooting in Dogiyai regency on June 26 that left one civilian dead and another wounded. 

Tensions rose even higher on July 15, after a riot broke out in Tolikara regency. A group of Christians rioted outside a small mosque as local Muslims were taking part in a prayer service to mark Eid-ul-Fitr. The Christians were angered by noise coming from the mosque's loudspeakers.

According to news reports, a small fire broke out at the mosque, and one person was shot dead and 11 others suffered gunshot wounds when police fired on the crowd. 

Yet because the people responsible for such shootings are still on active duty with the National Police and Army, their mere presence terrorizes people in Papua, Saklil said.

"The absence of a serious and sincere effort on their side gives the impression that both institutions are no longer serving the public. They are no more than the protector of immoral criminals," the bishop said. 

Komnas HAM investigates

Komnas HAM Commissioner Natalius Pigai and four other staff members arrived in Timika on Sept. 8 to interview relatives of the two dead civilians, as well as gather facts from the army, local police force, and intelligence officials.  

"We also stressed to the national police and army that we will monitor this case through to the level of military court, until the trial is over," Pigai told BenarNews by phone from Mimika. 

Families of the victims want justice, Pigai said after visiting several of the wounded in hospital. 

"Up until now, only the army has provided aid to the victims. No other aid has been received, including from the local government of Mimika. But the public is now seeking justice through transparent trials and verdicts, because we have two people who died here," he added. 

According to Pigai, the army has acknowledged that the two men who carried out the shooting were members of the local district's military command. Military police have arrested and identified them as Chief Sgt. Makhar and 1st Sgt. Arshar.

Separately, Cenderawasih Hinsa Siburian, head of Military Command Zone XVII, confirmed to BenarNews that the two soldiers had been handed over to military police.

"They are now under investigation and soon will be tried by the military high court. The sooner, the better," Siburian said. 

But he did not say what kind of punishment they might face, if court-martialed.

"They will be charged with multiple crimes," he said. 

Jokowi's promise 

The latest case has added to the toll from violence in Papua since Joko "Jokowi" Widodo was inaugurated as Indonesia's president last October, following an election campaign in which he promised to pay special attention to justice and development in Papua.

Laurensius Kadepa, a member of the provincial house of representatives, questioned the pledge that Jokowi had made on the campaign trail. 

"Where are his promises saying that Indonesia's development will be started in Papua? Where is his attention on the human rights issue in Papua? I see no significant change until now," Kadepa told BenarNews.

"The violence by security forces is still going on, and Papuan lives are at stake in the name of the unity of the Republic of Indonesia. That is very wrong," said Kadepa, who has headed parliamentary committees probing such shootings.

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BENARNEWS- Erni Juita could not contain her sorrow as she talked about being unable to see her husband's body one last time or attend his funeral.
The lone female survivor of the sinking of a boat off Malaysia's west coast on Sept. 3 told BenarNews how she clung to two floating corpses to stay alive. In all, 20 people survived the disaster.
Her husband and 63 others on board did not.
On that fateful day, she told her husband to cancel their trip home by boat because she had a bad feeling about it. But her husband, Muhammad Rizal, 27, asked her to ignore that hunch.
"Abang [my husband] said, 'if it's fate, we will die anyway no matter where we go,'" Erni, 25, told BenarNews, wiping away tears.
The interview took place Tuesday at Sultan Iskandar Muda International Airport in Blang Bintang, where she and 11 other Acehnese survivors of the sinking had just landed after being repatriated from Malaysia.
"I was in the hospital when my husband's body was repatriated to Aceh," Erni said.
Rizal's body was repatriated to Aceh on Sept. 8, and he was buried soon after, according to Islamic rituals.
The 12 who returned to Aceh on Tuesday were sent home after Malaysian authorities pardoned and released them on humanitarian grounds.
Their 12.2-metre (40-foot) wooden boat, which was crammed with undocumented Indonesian workers, capsized and sank during a journey from Kuala Sungai Bernam, in Malaysia's Selangor state, to Tanjungbalai, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.
The vessel was designed to carry no more than 15 passengers but more than 80 were aboard when the accident occurred in bad weather, officials with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) said.
Deputy Aceh Gov. Muzakir Manaf greeted the 12 upon their arrival. In his remarks, he expressed hope that Acehnese would apply for work permits in Malaysia before traveling there to work. As many as two million Indonesians work in the neighboring country without permits, according to news reports.
'Very uneasy feeling'
The boat left the Malaysian port shortly before midnight on Sept. 2, Erni recalled.
"When the boat departed, I had a very uneasy feeling, but my husband tried to calm me down. I just prayed to Allah. We thought that we would see our son soon," said Erni.
She and Rizal married in 2010. They had a son, Muhammad Alfaidi, who is now four and was staying behind in Aceh while his parents worked at a restaurant in Kuala Lumpur.
About 14 months ago, Erni joined her husband, who had already been working there. The couple sent money home to support their little boy, who was living with his grandmother, Erni said.
"The restaurant's owner promised to get us legal work permits; we waited for months, but it didn't get done. According to the restaurant owner, the quota had run out," she said.
Disaster strikes
The boat encountered trouble about three hours into the voyage as it approached the maritime boundary between Indonesia and Malaysia, Erni said.
Weather conditions worsened and big waves rocked the boat. All the passengers could do was pray and hope for the best, survivors said.
"The boat capsized after it was hit by the third wave but prior to that, waters were already flooding in. It was already starting to rain," Wahyu Saputra, a 23-year-old fellow survivor, told BenarNews.
The young man, who hails from South Aceh district, said he was able to survive after the boat went down by holding on to floating luggage for eight hours. He and other survivors were eventually rescued by local fishermen.
In Erni's case, she survived by clinging onto the corpses of two women who had drowned.
She said she felt like God had sent her those bodies to save her.
"I drank a lot of sea water. That was why I had to be hospitalized for a week to heal my lungs," she said.
'God has different ways'
Erni not only lost her husband at sea, but all of her belongings and the money they had saved up from working at the restaurant. When rescuers plucked her out of the Strait of Malacca waters, all that Erni had on was her underwear.
The couple had dreamed of using the money to settle back home for good and start their own enterprise. Despite losing her husband, Erni said she was looking forward to reuniting with her son and family and visiting Rizal's grave.
"We [planned to] work in Aceh. We had some savings for capital to start our own business," Erni said.
"But God has different ways. My husband is gone for good. I am letting him go because, after all, we all will also be returned to Allah."


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BENARNEWS- In the deadliest incident at the Hajj pilgrimage in 25 years, more than 700 people were killed and at least 800 injured in a crush of Muslim worshippers Thursday near the holy city of Mecca, according to news reports.
According to the latest figures reported by the Saudi Press Agency, the toll from the stampede at "street number 204 in Mina" had risen to 717 dead and 805 wounded.
The crush occurred as two large groups of pilgrims were converging at a crossroads, while on their way to perform the "Stoning the Devil" ritual at Jamarat, according to Reuters.
"The incident is thought to have occurred because pilgrims carrying out jumroh Aqabah (Stoning the Devil) suddenly stopped," Indonesia's Ministry of Religious Affairs said in a statement carried by the state-run Antara news service.
"Because they had stopped, pilgrims behind them began pushing people in front of them, so that many women and elderly people fell and became victims," the ministry statement said.
Three Indonesians were among the more than 700 pilgrims killed, according to Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Saiffudin.
"So far two Indonesian have been found dead and another one whose identity is still being traced," Lukman said via his Twitter account.
At least one Indian died and 21were injured, India's Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said at press time. The dead person was identified as Jaanbibi Majeed, a 60-year-old woman from the southern Indian city of Hyderabad.
"We will provide all help to Indian nationals. Two of our officials have reached the site of the accident. We are in constant touch with them," External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said.
About 130,000 Indians had undertaken the trip to Mecca, according to the MEA.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: "Distressing news from Mecca. Pained at loss of lives due to the stampede. Condolences to families of the deceased & prayers with the injured."
In Bangladesh, local news outlets reported that nine Bangladeshi pilgrims were injured in the stampede, one fatally. BDNews24 identified the dead pilgrim as Firoza Khanom, a primary school teacher from Jamalpur district.
At press time, there were no confirmed deaths among pilgrims from Thailand or Malaysia.
Second Hajj tragedy in 2015
The stampede was the second deadly incident to mar this year's Hajj pilgrimage to the holy city in Saudi Arabia, raising questions about public safety procedures and crowd control policies around the Hajj. Nearly two million Muslims from across the globe had arrived in the kingdom to take part in the pilgrimage, according to Agence France-Presse.
On Sept. 11, 109 people were killed when a crane collapsed on the Grand Mosque in Mecca, amid heavy rain and strong winds, according to Agence France-Presse.
On Thursday, Saudi Health Minister Khaled al-Falih blamed undisciplined pilgrims for the latest incident, saying it would not have occurred if they "had followed instructions," El-Ekhbariya television quoted him as saying, AFP reported.
"Many pilgrims move without respecting the timetables" established by authorities, which was the "principal reason for this type of accident," he said.
"If the pilgrims had followed instructions, this type of accident could have been avoided," al-Falih added.
Crown prince launches probe
Meanwhile, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Naif Abdulaziz called for the formation of a high-level committee to investigate the disaster, the Saudi Press Agency reported.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "was deeply saddened to learn of the death of more than 700 Hajj pilgrims and of injuries to many others as a result of a deadly incident in the Mina Valley in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia," a statement by his spokesman said.
"At this time, during the blessed holiday of [Eid-ul-Adha], the United States stands in support of Muslims around the world in the wake of this terrible tragedy," said a statement issued by the U.S. State Department.
However, while condolences poured in from abroad, so did criticism directed at Saudi Arabia's handling of the huge-scale pilgrimage.
"Today's incident shows mismanagement and lack of serious attention to the safety of pilgrims. There is no other explanation. The Saudi officials should be held accountable," AFP quoted Said Ohaidi, head of Iran's Hajj organization, as saying.
The Islamic Republic, Saudi Arabia's regional rival, lost 90 of its citizens in the stampede.
Irfan al-Alawi, co-founder of the Mecca-based Islamic Heritage Research Foundation and a critic of redevelopment projects at the holy sites, pointed to the issue of crowd control and the kingdom's development strategy as creating unsafe conditions at Saudi Arabia's holy sites, according to AFP.
"Yes, they have tried to improve facilities, but the priority for health and safety always fails" as development takes priority, Alawi told AFP.
Thursday's preliminary death toll was the highest since July 2, 1990, when 1,426 Hajj pilgrims died in a stampede inside a tunnel in Mina.
Both stampedes took place on Eid-ul-Adha, one of Islam's most important holy days, when it is customary for Muslim on the Haj pilgrimage to participate in the stoning ritual, according to Reuters.
Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata and Rohit Wadhwaney contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Activist and legal experts are demanding that the Indonesian government get serious about prison reform after a notorious embezzlement convict was photographed at a Jakarta restaurant earlier this month.
It was not the first jaunt outside jail by Gayus Tambunan, a former employee of Indonesia's tax authority who was sentenced in 2012 to 30 years in prison and was supposed to be serving his term at Sukamiskin Penitentiary in Bandung, West Java.
His day of freedom shows that money still talks, Muhammad Isnur, an activist from Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) Jakarta, told BenarNews.
"The rich ones can easily get out of prison. Gayus Tambunan's case is proof," Isnur said.
Isnur questioned Justice and Human Rights Minister Yasonna Laoly's pledge at the start of his term in October 2014 to reform prison management.
"Didn't he say that there would be no difference in treatment between rich and the poor prisoners?" he added.
Arief Sidharta, a legal expert from Parahyangan University in Bandung, also questioned whether the minister would follow through on his promise.
"Where's the reform that the ministry always boasts about?" he told BenarNews.
Yasonna should not take the case lightly because upon it rests the Indonesian people's faith in rule of law in the country, he said.
"This is an indication that there should be a total reform in prison management. Not just its facilities but also its human resources," Arief said.
Repeat offender?
This was not the first time that Gayus, a disgraced former tax officer convicted on four graft cases to do with taxes, had been spotted roaming freely in public since his March 2010 arrest.
In November 2010, he was photographed sitting among spectators at an international tennis match in Bali. Gayus was disguised in a wig and pair of glasses.
He was also found to have travelled to Macau, Thailand and Malaysia. In court in 2011, Gayus said he took the trip for medical reasons, but also did some gambling.
Officials at the Justice and Human Rights Ministry said Gayus was allowed out of Sukamiskin prison to attend a court hearing for his divorce.
Arief called that a flimsy reason.
"For a civil case such as divorce, he could have sent a representative; there was no need for him to attend himself," he said.
Under a 1999 government regulation on granting convicts a furlough from prison, he said, an inmate is only allowed out for a death in the family, an ailing child or when serving as guardian for a marriage.
Arief urged Yasonna to investigate allegations that prison wardens took bribes from Gayus.
LBH Jakarta's Muhammad Isnur compared the case with that of another inmate who was barely permitted to attend his child's funeral.
"He had difficulties getting permission to leave prison, he was even handcuffed during the funeral," Isnur said.
"But Gayus? It's like he was mocking the law by popping up in public places. Even if he had permission to attend his divorce hearing, he should not have gone to the restaurant, he
should have returned directly to prison and he should have been closely guarded," Isnur said.
Risking his remission rights
Directorate General of Penitentiaries spokesman Akbar Hadi said his office would take firm action against Gayus and prison wardens found to have let him out.
"There will be administrative sanctions for the wardens," Akbar said, though he didn't elaborate what those penalties would be.
Gayus has now been transferred to the maximum security Gunung Sindur penitentiary in Bogor, West Java, a special prison for drug kingpins.
He could also lose his right to have his sentence shortened, Akbar said.
"His remission will be reconsidered," he said.


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BENARNEWS- People who survived Thursday's deadly crush near Mecca, where more than 700 Hajj pilgrims lost their lives, expressed shock and anger a day later at what they had witnessed.
"There were layers of bodies, maybe three layers," one witness who asked not to be named told the Reuters news service. "Some people were alive under the pile of bodies and were trying to climb up but in vain, because their strength failed and they dropped dead."
"I felt helpless not to be able to save people. I saw them dying in front of my eyes," he added.
The stampede killed at least 717 pilgrims and injured 863 others, the al-Arabiya network reported, citing figures from Saudi Arabia's civil defense agency.
The death toll was highest among pilgrims from Iran and Morocco, which lost 131 and 87 citizens, respectively, according to al-Arabiya.
At least 18 Muslims from South and Southeast Asia were also among the dead. Fourteen Indian pilgrims were killed in the crush, along with three Indonesians and a Bangladeshi, according to officials from the three countries.
Indonesian dismay
The stampede was the deadliest incident to mar the Hajj pilgrimage since 1990 and the second deadly mishap at this year's Hajj.
Eleven Indonesian pilgrims were among 109 people killed on Sept. 11, when a crane collapsed onto the Grand Mosque in Mecca.
"It doesn't make sense that this could happen again," former Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Abdul Malik Fadjar told BenarNews.
Based on his experience as a Hajj leader, the potential for stampedes was very high during the Jamarat (Stoning of Satan) ritual, he said.
"The Saudi government should have been able to predict that, and assigned more officers," said Abdul Malik, who was minister of religion in the era of former president Habibie.
According to news reports, many hundreds of pilgrims have been killed or injured in 10 incidents at the Hajj pilgrimage, including fires and stampedes, dating to December 1975.
Thursday's disaster was the next deadliest at the Hajj since 1,426 pilgrims died in a stampede inside a tunnel in Mina on July 2, 1990.
Of those, 631 were Indonesian, according to Antara, Indonesia's state-run news agency.
On Friday, Indonesian lawmaker Saleh Partaonan Daulay complained that, nearly 24 hours after the latest disaster, the Saudi government had yet to give a breakdown of the death toll and the wounded by nationality.
"There should be systematic, scalable and professional efforts by Saudi Hajj organizers to explain to all countries whose citizens became victims, wherever they are from," Saleh, who chairs a parliamentary commission on supervision of the Hajj, told BenarNews by phone from Mina, where the tragedy took place.
By Friday morning (Saudi time), according to Indonesian Hajj officials, some 225 Indonesian pilgrims had not yet returned to their designated tent in Mina. But it was unclear whether those people were victims of the stampede, still worshiping, or visiting acquaintances, the officials said.
Anger and finger-pointing
Meanwhile, pictures of piles of dead bodies were circulating on social media, according to Reuters. One particularly graphic photograph, taken by Agence-France Presse, showed several layers of corpses piled one on top of the other.
"There was no room to maneuver," said Aminu Abubakar, an AFP correspondent who witnessed the disaster.
He managed to escape the human crush because he was at the head of the procession heading to a site in Mina where pilgrims throw pebbles at pillars that symbolize Satan.
According to AFP, fellow pilgrims told Abubakar of children who were dying despite parents' efforts to save them.
"They threw them on rooftops, mostly tent-tops ... Most of them couldn't make it," Abubakar told AFP.
The crush began close to the entrance to the Jamarat Bridge near Street 204, al-Arabiya reported. On Thursday night, Saudi Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen, Mansour al-Turki told reporters that the street where the disaster occurred "witnessed [an] unprecedented high number of pilgrims" compared to previous years.
Saudi King Salman has ordered a review of Hajj plans, according to Reuters, but Saudi Arabia continued to draw flak for its alleged mismanagement of the huge-scale pilgrimage.
Officials from the kingdom partly blamed pilgrims on Friday for failing to obey crowd-control instructions.
"The investigations into the incident of the stampede that took place today in Mina, which was perhaps because some pilgrims moved without following instructions by the relevant authorities, will be fast and will be announced as has happened in other incidents," Reuters quoted Saudi Health Minister Khalid al-Falih as saying in a statement.
Kenyan survivor Isaac Saleh, who was part of a group that lost three pilgrims, disagreed.
"I can blame the Saudi government because they did not control (the situation). I was there. I survived," Saleh told AFP.
Arie Firdaus and Rohit Wadhwaney contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian officials are demanding that the Saudi government give countries affected by last week's Hajj stampede full access to dead bodies to accelerate victim identification.
Officials from Indonesia – the country with the world's largest Muslim population –confirmed Monday that 41 Indonesian pilgrims had died in the disaster, 10 others were hospitalized and 82 were missing.
In a statement issued from Mecca, Indonesia's Religious Affairs Ministry said it was having difficulty identifying the dead because it had received hundreds of photographs of decomposing bodies. It had to attempt to match these with its own photographs and data about Hajj pilgrims, the ministry said.
Saudi officials have not yet released the nationalities of the 769 people who died in a stampede Thursday as pilgrims made their way to the complex in the nearby town of Mina, where Muslim worshipers were carrying out the symbolic "Stoning the Devil" ritual during Islam's Eid-ul-Adha holiday.
Saudi officials should allow officials from other countries to participate in identifying the dead, Former Indonesian Religious Affairs Minister Abdul Malik Fadjar said.
"This matter can no longer be handled alone. It has to be handled together. This is an emergency situation, right?" Malik Fadjar told BenarNews on Monday.
Abdul Djamil, Indonesia's director-general of activities around the Hajj and Umrah pilgrimages, said Saudi Arabia had not allowed Hajj officials from other countries to access victims immediately after the incident at Mina.
In a press release, he said Indonesian officials had been given limited access to the bodies at 11 p.m. on Friday.
'They have to be transparent'
During his tenure as Hajj leader for Indonesia, Malik Fadjar said, the Saudi government was seldom transparent about management of the pilgrimage.
"Indonesia should be brave enough to demand full access. Saudi Arabia must swallow its pride. They have to be transparent and open access to countries whose citizens are still missing," Malik Fadjar said.
While 82 Indonesians were unaccounted for as of Monday, 98 Hajj pilgrims from Bangladesh were still missing, officials with that country's Ministry of Religious Affairs told BenarNews.
Bangladeshi officials also confirmed that at least 10 citizens had died in the incident. According to Agence France-Presse, 45 Indian pilgrims were also killed in the crush.
Zulkifli Hasan, chairman of the Indonesian People's Consultative Assembly, insisted that Hajj officials be given access so that anxious relatives of pilgrims could get information about the fate of their loved ones more quickly.
"I hope our officials can get all the information," Zulkifli told BenarNews.
He also urged the Indonesian government to press the Saudi government to reveal the cause of the incident, and not just settle for monetary compensation.
"They must request an investigation immediately. Don't just accept it when they say they are ready with financial compensation. Then this could happen again," he said.
Earlier, Saudi Health Minister Khaled al-Falih had suggested that undisciplined pilgrims who did not stick to the schedule for carrying out the pebble-throwing ritual were to blame for the tragedy.
Saudi Arabia's senior-most cleric, Sheikh Abdul Azia al-Sheikj, was quoted by Saudi Press Agency as saying that the tragedy was not the responsibility of the government but "the will of God."
Tricky undertaking
Indonesians who survived the stampede said Saudi Hajj officials had instructed them to take Street 204, where the stampede took place, rather than their usual route. Religious Affairs Ministry officials said they would try to find out why.
Streets leading to the stone-throwing site were closed Thursday morning without a clear explanation, according to pilgrims from other countries.
But for now, the ministry said it would focus on the process of identifying the dead and injured and locate the missing.
"Our team is working night and day to find people whose whereabouts are unknown," Abdul Djamil said.
Saudi policy has made this task harder, Tempo quoted Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Saifuddin as saying. He said his staff had not been able to get much information from hospitals and morgues because of tight security.
"Access to information is not easy, either formally or informally," he said.
Even after gaining access, Indonesian officials had difficulty trying to determine on their own – without any assistance from the Saudi government – whether the victims were from Indonesia.
Moreover, in many cases, an identifying bracelet or small bag given to Indonesian pilgrims was missing or had removed by officials at the scene of the stampede, Saifuddin said.
Indonesian officials were working round the clock, checking hospitals and funeral homes from Mina to Mecca, he said.
Jesmin Papri contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Fifty years after the Indonesian military led a mass slaughter of people in an anti-communist purge, public debate about the massacre appears to be taboo.
A discussion and screening of the trailer of a film about a song linked to Indonesia's defunct communist party were cancelled at the last minute at a university campus in Banyuwangi, East Java, this week. The former Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) was blamed for a failed coup attempt in 1965, which unleashed the killings of more than 500,000 people by the army and its civilian death squads.
The cancellation took place after army and police officials met with officials of the University of 17 August 1945 in the stronghold of the old PKI.
"The decision was taken to avoid any potential harm caused by the event," Mistawi, the dean of academic affairs at the University of 17 August 1945, told BenarNews.
A student historical society had organized Wednesday's event around the trailer for film, titled "Half a Century of Gendjer-Gendjer," exploring a folk song that was popular with PKI cadres and inspired by a water plant, Gendjer-Gendjer.
The public response was "terrific" after the trailer-screening event was advertised on social media the day before, said Ika Ningtyas, an independent researcher and former journalist who was supposed to be the keynote speaker at the event.
"Organizers got a call from intelligence [officials] to delete the announcement. I just obeyed the order," said Ika, who spent a year conducting research into the song along with Yuda Kurniawan, a filmmaker who produced the trailer.
The song was written in 1943 in Osing, a language local to Banyuwangi, and its composer, Muhammad Arief, disappeared in October 1965.
The controversial song was allegedly used as a propaganda tool by the PKI. The song was inspired by a famine that struck parts of Indonesia under the Japanese occupation during World War II, when some Indonesians had resorted to eating Gendjer-Gendjer to survive.
East Java saw one of the biggest clampdowns of people suspected of being PKI members or sympathizers during the mass slaughter that gripped the archipelago in late 1965 and 1966.
Those suspected of even weak links to the Indonesian communist party were killed in the bloody campaign that started after General Suharto put down a coup on Oct. 1, 1965 blamed on PKI.
Suharto, who eventually took power from President Sukarno after the failed coup and ruled Indonesia with an iron fist for 32 years, died in 2008.
No apology from government
President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, who came to power promising accountability for past human rights violations, asserted this week that the Indonesian government would not apologize on behalf of the state to the family members of those who were killed.
The mass killings, which wiped out the PKI and its ranks of cadres, are known among Indonesians as the September 30th Movement (G30S).
"I hope the G30S/PKI [coup] will not happen again in our beloved country," the Jakarta Post quoted Jokowi as saying Thursday after a ceremony at the Pancasila Sakti Monument in East Jakarta.
"I have no thoughts about apologizing, up until this moment I have had no such thought," he told reporters.
Human rights group Amnesty International called for immediate accountability.
"Five decades is far too long to wait for justice for one of the worst mass killings of our era," said Papang Hidayat, Amnesty International's Indonesia researcher, in a statement.
"Across Indonesia, victims of the 1965 and 1966 events and their family members have been left to fend for themselves, while those suspected of criminal responsibility walk free."
Stigma endures
Sukiman, who was among thousands imprisoned without a trial following the mass killings, said he and his relatives have since lived with the stigma of being associated with the country's old communist party.
"My grandchildren are often bullied at school by their schoolmates. They called them grandchildren of PKI," the resident of Blitar told BenarNews.
Sukiman hopes that a national reconciliation and rectification of the history that he and other victims have long been waiting for will occur in the near future.
A historian of State University of Malang, Prof. Hariyono said the government and involved parties needed to sit down and talk to clear the past.
"Let's review the whole history," he said.
If all sides are wise enough to review what had happened, they will easily find solutions over the ongoing dispute, he told BenarNews. The stigma haunting families of PKI members, which caused them to be excluded from society and go jobless, is inhumane, he said.
Fatkhul Khoir, coordinator of the Surabaya Regional Commission for The Disappeared and Victims of Violence (Kontras), suggested a court trial to begin the process of what he called history rectification.
"Just imagine, some of the victims are dead and still considered as suspects," Fatkhul said.
KontraS has pushed the government to set up a special court to try cases of human rights violations.


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BENARNEWS- The death toll in the Muslim pilgrim disaster in Saudi Arabia has jumped to more than 1,000 as Indonesia and Iran reported much higher casualty figures than initially feared.
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim nation, said Friday that 91 of its pilgrims died in the stampede on Sept. 24 near Islam's holy city of Mecca. When the tragedy struck, only about a dozen people from the archipelago were reported dead.
Thirty-eight Indonesians remain missing after the disaster in Mina, the Indonesian Hajj Affairs Office in Mecca said in a statement.
"Through today, the total who died is 91 people, including 86 hajj pilgrims [from Indonesia] and five Indonesian residents in Saudi Arabia," Arsyad Hidayat, an official with the Ministry of Religious Affairs, was quoted as saying in Jeddah on Friday.
"We will continue efforts to seek the pilgrims who are still missing and provide news as quickly as possible to meet the information needs of families, relatives, and all Indonesians," Arsyad said.
Saudi authorities have not given a country-by-country breakdown of the 769 pilgrims they say were killed in the stampede.
But the Agence France-Presse and Associated Press news agencies reported that the death toll given by foreign officials and media was now 1,036, well in excess of the Saudi figure. AFP tallies show another 703 people as unaccounted for.
The total figure could be even larger as an AP survey covered only 15 of the more than 180 countries that sent some 2 million pilgrims on the annual pilgrimage, a pillar of Islamic faith.
Faisal Alzahrani, the Saudi Health Ministry's general director of communications, told AP late Thursday night that his office's figure of 769 killed and 934 injured in Mina remained accurate.
He has said that civil defense authorities would announce future totals as Saudi authorities continue to investigate the cause of the disaster.
Among all countries, Iran has lost the most pilgrims – 465 – nearly double its earlier count, according to a list published Thursday by Iranian state news agency IRNA.
Saeed Ohadi, the head of Iran's hajj department, told state television that Iranian officials were trying to return bodies of Iranian pilgrims "as soon as possible." He said Iran and Saudi Arabia had agreed not to bury any of the dead in Saudi Arabia without prior permission by Iran or the families of the deceased.
The disaster has fed into the bitter regional rivalry between the Sunni Saudi Arabia and the Shiite Iran, which back opposite sides in the wars in Syria and Yemen.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had warned this week of "harsh" measures if Saudi Arabia failed to promptly repatriate the bodies of the Iranian dead.
On Thursday, Bangladesh's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said 41 people from the country had died in the stampede, and more than 50 others were still missing.
Citing information from its Jeddah consulate, the Bangladeshi government said that 61 others were believed injured.
Saudi authorities have said the disaster occurred when two waves of pilgrims converged on a narrow road, causing many to suffocate or be trampled to death.


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BENARNEWS- At least 345 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar have fled refugee camps in Indonesia's Aceh province and their whereabouts are unknown, officials and refugees confirmed to BenarNews.
The number of missing represents a third of the 1,010 Rohingyas who landed in Aceh in May, along with hundreds of Bangladeshi migrants, after being rescued from abandoned and stranded human-smuggling boats in the Strait of Malacca.
The missing refugees may have paid human traffickers to smuggle them to Malaysia so they could reunite with relatives there and find jobs, sources told BenarNews.
It is unclear when they vanished from camps scattered along the north coast of Indonesia's western-most province.
According to humanitarian workers and government officials, the refugees fled in groups of two of to a dozen people at a time with the help of illegal migration agents.
Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim and relatively prosperous country, is a prime destination in Southeast Asia for Rohingyas, many of whom flee religious and ethnic persecution in Buddhist-dominated Myanmar, in search of better employment and educational prospects abroad.
An anti-human trafficking crackdown by Thailand – which lies along transit routes for illegal migration from Myanmar and Bangladesh – led to a May maritime blockade on smugglers' boats, which forced many to sail farther south in search of places to land.
"Many of my friends here have fled because they need to earn money so they can send it to their families back in Myanmar," Sahidullah, a Rohingya Muslim cleric who is among refugees sheltering in Blang Ado, a village in North Aceh regency, told BenarNews.
Sahidullah, 22, said he had no plans to flee although one of his eight siblings now worked in Malaysia. He said he hoped the Indonesian government would give work permits to Muslim Rohingyas.
"We only eat and sleep here. There is no work to do from which we can make money, while many of the Rohingya need money to provide for their families they left behind in Myanmar," he said Wednesday.
Tents
Albert Djalius, an immigration official in the town of Lhokseumawe, confirmed that 80 of the 315 refugees in Blang Ado had fled.
Rohingyas are also housed on the grounds of an old paper mill in Bayeun, in East Aceh, and in the city of Langsa. A large number fled Bayeun, where the refugees were living in tents along a major roadway.
"There were 342 Rohingya refugees, when they were stranded and saved. Now, there are only 184 refugees left. The rest have fled," Ibrahim, a volunteer in charge of logistics at the Bayeun shelter, told BenarNews this week.
In Langsa, 107 refugees have fled, leaving 178 behind, said M. Daud, an official with the city's social welfare agency.
According to Afrizal, an official from the Langsa immigration office, refugees are prohibited from working in Indonesia and they must obtain passes from security guards to leave the shelter's premises.
Sources said they believed that Rohingya traffickers had infiltrated the camps and mixed in with the refugees.
"The refugees left at night, sneaking out of the side fence to the street where there was an agent with a car waiting for them. They were then transported to Medan," Ibrahim said, referring to a city in neighboring North Sumatra province.
Security guards have caught some of the refugees who were trying to flee. Those who failed to get away said traffickers were charging 3,000 ringgit (U.S. $713) per person to help the Rohingyas escape, Ibrahim added.
Foiled escape
In late September, all the remaining refugees in Blang Ado tried to leave their shelter after reports that four Rohingya women had been raped when they were caught on the night of Sept. 27 trying to flee the camp. However, police intercepted and stopped the exodus, according to local news reports.
Medical tests on three of the women showed no evidence of rape, police in Lhokseumawe said last week.
"Based on forensic medical examinations on the three refugees, we found no indication of rape or sexual assault," A.K.B.P. Anang Triarsono, the local police chief, told BenarNews.
"Another Rohingya woman was not examined because she said at the beginning that she was not sexually harassed."


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BENARNEWS- A lawyer defending eight Indonesians being tried for links to the Islamic State extremist group (IS) challenged the legal basis for the case in comments to BenarNews on Tuesday.
Trials for the eight suspected IS sympathizers started in West Jakarta District Court on Monday, but defense attorney Asludin Hatjani called the charges fabricated and forced.
"They are being called IS sympathizers because they have been to Syria. But they did that before Indonesia declared IS a dangerous group and banned it," he told BenarNews.
According to Asludin, the government banned IS via a Central Jakarta District Court determination on Oct. 11, 2014. The accused men visited Syria in 2013, he said.
"That means the crime being prosecuted took place before IS was banned. How can that be?" he said.
The eight are being charged under articles 15 and 7 of Law 15/2003 on the Eradication of Terrorism, which carries a minimum penalty of three years in prison and a maximum penalty of death.
The men are Ridwan Sungkar (alias Abu Bilal); Ahmad Junaedi (alias Abu Salman); Abdul Hakim Munabari; Helmi Muhammad Alamudi (alias Abu Royan); Saeful Jambi; Aprium Hendri; Koswara; and Tuah Febriwansyah (alias Muhammad Fachry).
Fachry has also been charged under Law 11/2008 on Information and Electronic Transfers because he is accused of spreading support for IS via the online portal al-Mustaqbal. On several occasions the website has voiced support for al-Muhajirun, the armed movement supporting the "caliphate" declared by IS in parts of Syria and Iraq.
'Prepared for terror'
Prosecutor Suroyo shrugged off the objection raised by Asludin.
"If he feels it's not relevant, he can say so in his defense," Suroyo told BenarNews.
The charges were carefully considered, he said.
Although Indonesia named IS a banned organization in 2014, according to Suroyo, the United Nations had already done so in 2011.
The world body placed sanctions on IS precursor group al-Qaeda in Iraq and several of its leaders in June 2011, after deeming them threats to world peace and security, in Security Council Resolution 1988.
"We used that basis in the charges to ensnare them," he said.
"Moreover, as long as they were in Syria for military training in ISIS camps, they knew they were being prepared for terror," Suroyo said, using another acronym for the militant group.
BNPT supports case
Although tried on the same day, the suspects were arrested at different times and locations. Ridwan Sungkar was arrested in March in Tulungagung, East Java.
Also that month, the Indonesian counter-terrorist police unit Detachment 88 arrested Abdul Hakim Munabari, Helmi Alamudi, and Ahmad Junaedi in Malang, East Java.
Fachry was detained the same month in South Tangerang, Banten, in West Java.
Details on the other three men were not immediately available.
"They were tried on the same day because the charges against them are almost the same, although it is not considered a single case," Kusumoaji, a prosecutor at West Jakarta District Court, told BenarNews.
Separately, Wawan Purwanto, a staff expert at the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), praised prosecutors for citing earlier U.N. measures against IS in their case.
"That was a good step because it gives the indictment a strong foundation," Wawan said when contacted by BenarNews.
Wawan said he hoped other Indonesians would not follow in the footsteps of the accused men anytime soon. The Indonesian government will not hesitate to punish severely anyone who does, he said.
One possible punishment could be revoking the Indonesian citizenship of those who join IS, he said, to avoid the possibility that they would form or join militant groups after coming home from combat tours in the Middle East.
Indonesian authorities have warned of an emerging threat from IS and its domestic supporters aggressively recruiting Indonesian youths to join its ranks via social media, Muslim boarding schools and other campuses.
A total of 514 Indonesians have joined the group in Syria, out of whom 52 have been killed in action, BNPT chief Saud Usman Nasution told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) last month.
The next trial date for the eight men is Oct. 20, with the defense taking the stand, lawyers said.


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BENARNEWS- Jakarta residents have long relied on ojeks, unregulated motorcycle taxis, to zip through the city's traffic-choked streets.
Hiring an ojek used to involve getting to the nearest spot where drivers await customers – but not any longer.
Now, people can book rides on their mobile phones and the two-wheeled taxi will come to them, thanks to new apps offered by start-up companies. The service is all the rage among Jakarta residents, and is spreading to other cities.
"The service is very helpful, especially for middle-class workers like me. I wanted to take public transportation provided by the government, but it even takes more time, because I have to change vehicles a few times," Jessica Sihotang, a 26-year-old Jakartan, told BenarNews.
The two big companies in town offering app-based motortaxi services are the start-ups Go-Jek and GrabBike.
"By taking Go-Jek/GrabBike, the drivers will take us to the destinations right away with a cheaper price, and it is safer. The drivers are registered and you can always check their identities," Jessica said.
GrabBike and its sister company GrabTaxi – a four-wheel taxi service that competes with Uber in Jakarta – were founded by a Malaysian entrepreneur, Michael Tan. Go-Jek was started by Nadiem Makarim, a young Indonesian tech executive and graduate of the Harvard Business School.
Their companies have recruited a large number of ojek drivers. Go-Jek, for one, claims that it employs 15,000 drivers who operate in Jakarta, Bali, Surabaya, and Bandung.
To join either company, drivers need only show copies of required documents. They then must pass a series of tests, including one that demonstrates knowledge of traffic regulations.
Upon meeting the requirements, drivers are given helmets, a jacket emblazoned with the company's name, a cellular phone for receiving orders, and masks for passengers.
Happy drivers
M. Haerullah, a father of four children and ojek driver since 1980s, is now driving for GrabBike.
"Usually, I only earned Rp. 2-3 million (U.S. $149-224) a month when I was still a conventional ojek driver. Now, I can earn more, at least twice as much. The more orders you receive, the more you will earn," the 49-year-old told BenarNews.
Haerullah no longer has to wait for passengers at a spot in the Kebun Sirih area of Central Jakarta, where he and other conventional ojek congregate and wait for passengers. All he has to do is to check for service orders on his cellphone.
"Now, I can spend some time enjoying lunch with my wife at home. I can even get some time to take a nap in the daytime before receiving orders again. I can spend the whole day on the streets, taking orders and earning more," Haerullah said.
Fellow GrabBike driver Ujang Sahroni, 52, is a former migrant worker who worked as a butcher in a hotel in Oman, but he had to return to Indonesia when his work permit there expired.
"I never thought about being an ojek driver, because it is seen as a lowly profession in the public's eyes," Ujang told BenarNews.
But although he would like to return to Oman one day, he said he was satisfied with the income he has earned since August as a GrabBike driver.
"In less than a month, I received Rp. 4.7 million [U.S. $350] . I feel thankful for that," he said.
Obstacles
Not all ojek drivers are on board with the app-based services. Traditional operators have resisted the popular trend. For instance, in the Kalibata area of East Jakarta, conventional drivers raised a huge banner stating their objection to the presence of app-based competitors in the area.
The app-based services face another obstacle with the Jakarta Regional Transportation Agency recently declaring their services illegal because motorcycles are not classified as public modes of transportation mode under Law No. 22/2009. The law also applies to traditional ojeks, which nevertheless operate freely.
But Jakarta Gov. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, nicknamed Ahok, has expressed his support for amending the laws so that app-based ojek services can be used for public transportation and help ease Jakarta's gridlock.
"I do hope that someday the service will be legal," rider Jessica Sihotang said.


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BENARNEWS- Greenhouse gas emissions from forest fires in Indonesia exceeded the daily U.S. average for nearly a month during a recent six-week stretch, according to a Washington D.C.-based environmental group.
On 26 days between Sept. 1 and Oct. 14, tens of thousands of Indonesian fires sent higher levels of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere than daily levels emitted by the United States, the World Resources Institute (WRI) reported.
"What does a climate catastrophe look like in a real world context? Since September, daily emissions from Indonesia's fires exceeded daily emissions from the entire U.S. economy on 26 days. To put it into perspective, the U.S. economy is 20 times larger than Indonesia's," WRI said in revealing the findings.
WRI based these on satellite-based data gathered by Guido van der Werf, a researcher at VU University Amsterdam, in the Netherlands, who runs the Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED).
In 2013, the United States was the world's second biggest emitter of greenhouse gases behind China and ahead of India (No. 3) and Indonesia (No. 11), according to the Global Carbon Atlas, a website that compiles and analyzes information on greenhouse-gas emissions.
The daily American average of carbon dioxide emissions is approximately 15.95 million metric tons, and on a single day – Oct. 14 – emissions from the Indonesian fires spiked well above that number, at around 80 million metric tons, according to WRI.
As of Wednesday, the number of active fires detected in Indonesian had risen to 108,436, according to the latest information from the GFED. Fires are burning not only on the islands of Borneo and Sumatra, but also on Sulawesi and in Papua, Indonesia's easternmost province.
Wreaking havoc
Haze from the Indonesian fires, which have been burning for two months, has blanketed parts of Indonesia, neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, and reached southern Thailand and the Philippines.
The fires recur yearly, but experts have predicted that this year's agricultural fires could be the worst on record and may last till the end of the year.
Russia, Japan, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore have deployed aircraft to Indonesia to help its government fight the fires, the Associated Press reported Wednesday.
The soil in burning areas contains high levels of peat, making the fires very difficult to extinguish – and especially toxic.
"These areas store some of the highest quantities of carbon on Earth, accumulated over thousands of years," WRI said. "Draining and burning these lands for agricultural expansion (such as conversion to oil palm or pulpwood plantations) leads to huge spikes in greenhouse gas emissions."
"Fires also emit methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide (CO2), but peat fires may emit up to 10 times more methane than fires occurring on other types of land. Taken together, the impact of peat fires on global warming may be more than 200 times greater than fires on other lands," the institute added.
Air pollution from the fires has caused health problems in the region, disrupted economic activity and forced the closure of schools.
In Malaysia on Wednesday, all schools in the country were ordered closed for the third straight day since Monday and 34 flights in and out of Langkawi International Airport, in Kedah state, were cancelled due to poor visibility.
"Many flights have been delayed due to this haze. Same goes for the shipping industry," Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong Lai said Wednesday, referring to overall flight cancellations caused by the haze over recent weeks, local news outlets reported.


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BENARNEWS- Aceh's expanded Sharia criminal penal code goes into effect on Friday, with punishments of 100 lashes in public for homosexual acts and 200 for the rape of a child, among other measures.
The regional House of Representatives approved the bylaws – known as Qanun Jinayat – in September 2014, despite activists objecting to them as discriminatory and difficult to implement fairly.
Hendra Saputra, of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS) of Aceh, voiced concern about the Qanun Jinayat being selectively enforced.
Under existing Sharia laws, enforcement "has been sharp toward the bottom, and blunt toward the top," he told BenarNews.
"Many cases involving officials do not result in canings, but ordinary people are often caned," he said, adding that KontraS rejected caning as a punishment.
Moreover, "Qanun Jinayat does not apply to members of the Indonesian armed forces (TNI) in Aceh. They should comply with Qanun Jinayat, to support the implantation of Sharia law, and Aceh's singular character."
'Very high impact on women'
The criminal code discriminates against women, according to Azriana, head of the National Commission on Women (Komnas Perempuan) and a native of Aceh.
"What really concerns us is there will be impunity for rapists, because an oath is taken as evidence," she said. "If the perpetrator swears that he did not rape, then rape is considered not to have happened."
Aceh is the only province in Indonesia where Sharia law has been partially implemented since 2001, and it also enjoys a degree of autonomy. Sharia law there was guaranteed in a peace deal signed in Helsinki 10 years ago, which ended a decades-old separatist conflict between the Indonesian government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) rebels.
Under the Islamic criminal code, people who gamble, drink alcohol, or engage in lewd behavior can be caned in public after being convicted in a Sharia court – and many have been.
During 14 years of partial Sharia law to date, women have suffered disproportionately from enforcement of clothing regulations and rules against behaviors such as being alone with a person of the opposite sex, Azriana said.
"Every rule that regulates morality has a very high impact on women. This is a form of discrimination because a woman who violates such rules carries a negative stigma about it for the rest of her life," the activist told BenarNews.
Ismail Hasani, from the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, blasted the criminal code as "cruel, inhumane and against the constitution," according to Agence France-Presse.
"The government should not meddle in private affairs and instead guarantee individual rights such as freedom," AFP quoted him as saying.
'Safeguarding' human dignity
Azriana and Hendra said their respective institutions would closely monitor the implementation of Qanun Jinayat in Aceh, and regularly issue their findings if they saw problems.
"Hopefully after the qanun are implemented, there will be no more violations of Sharia Islam. But if there are still many cases, like now, it means the implementation of the Sharia criminal code has failed in Aceh," Hendra said.
Meanwhile, the Institute for Criminal Justice Reform (ICJR) is preparing to challenge the Qanun Jinayat in Indonesia's Supreme Court on grounds that some of its clauses violate national law to the detriment of homosexuals, women and children.
Syahrizal Abbas , head of the Sharia Law Office of Aceh, said he welcomed monitoring of the implementation of the Qanun Jinayat.
"Critics of the substance and implementation must be accepted to ensure we are following the rules. If the implementation is imperfect, it has to be quickly corrected," he said.
Over the past year, his office worked hard to educate people all over Aceh about the new bylaws. The hope is that once they are in force, there will be no more violations of Sharia law because the penalties are very severe, he said.
"The essence of this legal code is to safeguard human dignity. This is also to protect the people of Aceh so that they do not sin before Allah," he told BenarNews.
In Syahrizal's view, the Qanun Jinayat completes the province's Sharia legal code by adding seven "criminal" acts: fornication, accusing someone of adultery, sexual harassment, rape, lewdness and lesbian or gay sexual acts.
Rape penalties most severe
Under the Qanun Jinayat, which BenarNews has seen, the harshest penalty, that for the rape of a child, is 150 to 200 lashes. The rape of an adult woman carries a penalty of 125 to 175 lashes.
Violators can pay a fine in pure gold or serve jail time in lieu of being caned.
"The judge is the one who makes the decision about these alternative punishments. So the judge is given space to decide whether the Sharia law violator will be caned, put in jail or required to pay a fine," said Syahrizal, who is also a professor of Islamic law at Ar-Raniry State Islamic University in Banda Aceh.
"But, for fornication, 100 lashes and accusing someone of adultery, 80 lashes – there is no alternative, because those punishments are listed in the Quran."
A person convicted of engaging in lesbian or gay sex can be punished with 100 lashes, while a person found guilty of sexual harassment can receive 45 lashes. Drinking alcohol carries 40 lashes; gambling a maximum of 12; and kissing by a man and woman not yet married, 30.


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BENARNEWS- President Joko Widodo is due back in Indonesia on Thursday after curtailing his first state visit to the United States in order to deal with a haze crisis from forest fires across his country, the presidential palace said.
Jokowi, as he is popularly known, was to leave Washington D.C. late Tuesday (local time) and return home directly. He cancelled the second leg of his planned four-day trip, setting aside efforts to stoke investor interest in Indonesia, whose economy has flagged during his year-old presidency.
He was scheduled to visit tech giants Google and Apple and investment fund managers in California. Instead, the president will fly straight to Jambi, a province on Sumatra island, or to Palangkaraya, the capital of Central Kalimantan province, to inspect the fires and haze up close, palace officials said.
"I've decided to shorten my trip to America and quickly return home," Jokowi announced via Twitter shortly before meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington on Monday, a day after arriving in the United States.
The Indonesian government may also declare a national emergency over the fires, which have raged for weeks and have sent smoke from Indonesia to neighboring countries in Southeast Asia, Vice President Jusuf Kalla told the Reuters news agency on Tuesday.
"The problem is too big," Kalla said. "We are now considering [it]."
Indonesia has been widely criticized in the region for allowing the situation to go on and recur yearly. During the first two days of his American trip, Jokowi was under domestic pressure to cut short his visit. Indonesians criticized him for making the trip in the middle of the crisis, but citizens on Tuesday welcomed the news of his imminent return.
Dewi Meini, a resident of Pekanbaru City, on Sumatra, said she hoped the president's attentiveness to the crisis would ease the burden endured by locals.
"It's been like this for two months, hasn't it? How many masks have we gone through, oxygen, air purifiers as well. Not to mention the amount of time spent cooped up at home," she complained to BenarNews.
'For the sake of our future generations'
Air pollution from illegal fires used to clear land for agriculture and palm oil plantations in Indonesia has been a regional irritant for two decades, but this year's haze problem is set to be the worst on record, due to an extended dry season.
In comments from the White House on Monday, Jokowi acknowledged the climatic impact of the fires.
"We've had a thorough discussion with President Obama on the issue of climate change. We also agreed to work together in addressing the issue, for the sake of our future generations. Especially in Indonesia, we have a big challenge right now. We have peat fires, and the efforts to extinguish it is quite challenging," Jokowi said, according to a transcript of his translated remarks released by the White House.
The fires, usually confined to Sumatra and Kalimantan, are now burning on other islands and regions of the sprawling archipelago, including Sulawesi, Maluku and Papua.
The resultant haze has forced school closures, caused illness and disrupted economic activity from southern Thailand to the Philippines. Late last week, it finally reached Jakarta – the capital city usually spared from the annual air-borne menace.
"Now more than a half million people have acute respiratory infections. If the rain doesn't fall soon, will the government be able to continue giving medical care if more people collapse?" Nanang Subana, director of Oxfam in Indonesia, told BenarNews.
"The long-term impact could also be serious illness such as lung cancer. The government needs to anticipate potential secondary hazards like this," Nanang added.
As of late last week, this year's fires had killed 10 Indonesians, made a half million people in six provinces ill, and affected some 43 million Indonesians, according to the National Board for Disaster Management (BNPB).
Weak oversight
The spread of the fires, even as neighboring countries are helping to extinguish existing ones, has underlined what environmental activists say is weak oversight and a lack of legal deterrents, especially towards large companies involved in the burning.
"As we see in this crisis time when the smoke is really bad, legal measures taken by the ministries of forestry and the environment are really disappointing," said Musri Nauli, director of the Indonesian environmental group Walhi in Jambi.
In coming days, Walhi and the Indonesian Advocates Association (Peradi) plan to file a class action lawsuit against the government over the fires.
"[Jambi] police have released a list of suspects, but the strange thing is, we don't recognize the names on that list," Musri said.
Large companies that activists believe are behind the burning are not among them, he said.
Indonesia's palm oil industry has expanded rapidly. In 2013, palm oil plantations covered 13.5 million hectares (33.4 million acres), according to Sawit Watch, an Indonesian non-governmental organization. Palm oil is used in food, household products, and cosmetics.
And Indonesia's government has set a goal of 28 million hectares (69.2 million acres) of palm oil plantations by 2020.
"That is why the burning continues," Musri said.
Light sentences
Riko Kurniawan, the Walhi executive director in Riau, just north of Jambi, said law enforcement and government officials in his province were becoming bolder in taking legal action against perpetrators. Eleven suspects are currently on trial, he said.
"The problem now is with the courts," he told BenarNews. Trials result in weak charges and light sentences.
"The judges and prosecutors appear to be unaware of environmental law. Purposefully or not, their understanding is weak so that in the end the sentence is light, or there's no legal consequence at all," he said.
According to Musri, "the fight against corporations is complex. They have a lot of capital, and that can be very influential," he said.
"We can see how much they support the senior officials who visit the areas impacted by smoke. Corporate officials always greet important [visiting] government officials. Corporate logos even appear at the fire stations," he added.
Meanwhile, the behavior of some judges is eroding the credibility of the courtroom, Riko said.
He recalled the case of a judge in an environmental suit in Riau's Bengkalis District Court who was called to account for spending leisure time with defendants in the case.


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BENARNEWS- Human rights advocates and members of Aceh's Christian minority are voicing concern about non-Muslims being subject to prosecution and punishment under the province's newly expanded Sharia criminal code.
The Indonesian province on Oct. 23 expanded its Islamic criminal code, known as the Qanun Jinayat. Adultery, physical contact between an unmarried couple, rape and homosexual acts are among offenses under Islamic law that can now be punished with 10 to 200 lashes of the cane, depending on the crime.
But exposing non-Muslims to punishment under these new bylaws contradicts the spirit of sharia law, according to Zulfikar Muhammad, director of the Aceh Human Rights NGOs Coalition.
"This is a form of injustice to non-Muslims. It remains unclear if penalties for non-Muslims are the same as those for Muslims," he told BenarNews.
"Penalties in Islam are part of atonement. Would it be the right way to atone for one's sins if Qanun Jinayat is applied to non-Muslims?" Zulfikar said.
Samarel Telaumbanua, a Christian counselor at the provincial office of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, said the bylaws should only apply to Muslims.
"It seems as coercion if it is also applicable to non-Muslims," he told BenarNews.
He expressed hope that the issue wouldn't aggravate relations between Aceh's Muslim majority and members of other religions, and that the government would maintain tolerance and harmony between different faiths in the province.
Lately, tensions between Muslims and Christian have risen after a mob burned down a church and a man was shot dead in Aceh Singkil regency, causing some 8,000 panicked residents to flee to a neighboring regency for several days.
Subsequently, Muslim groups pressured local authorities to raze up to 10 churches in the area that supposedly lacked proper building permits.
Exposed
Non-Muslims, including both Indonesian and foreign tourists, can be prosecuted under the Qanun Jinayat if caught committing one of the aforementioned acts with a Muslim, and if Indonesia's criminal code (KUHP) does not include the alleged crime.
Aceh has a degree of autonomy from the central government, and is the only Indonesian province that implements Sharia law. It has its own police force dedicated to enforcement of statutes, such as a conservative public dress code.
Some 50 to 60 local governments out of more than 6,800 across Indonesia, however, have adopted Sharia-inspired regulations, according to the U.S. State Department's "International Religious Freedom Report" for 2014.
Under the expanded Qanun Jinayat, non-Muslims can be arrested for khalwat – an unmarried couple being alone in a secluded place.
Khalwat is not in the national criminal code. Nor is adultery, accusing others of adultery, or homosexuality, according to Saifuddin Bantasyam, a legal expert at Syiah Kuala University in Banda Aceh.
"In accordance with the current norms, non-Muslims now can be charged with the Qanun Jinayat if they commit crimes unregulated in the KUHP," he told BenarNews.
"The Qanun doesn't say that it is only applicable to Acehnese but to everyone who violates the law in Aceh," he said.
'We can coexist'
The director of the Acehnese chapter of one of Indonesia's largest and most influential Muslim organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) – which had pushed for expansion of the bylaws – tried to allay concerns that they could erode relations between Aceh's various religious communities.
"The fact is that Muslims in Aceh do tolerate religious freedom and we can coexist without any problems," Teungku Faisal Ali, who heads NU's provincial chapter, told BenarNews.
"We don't want to raise the impression that Islamic law in Aceh infringes on the rights of non-Muslims ...," he said.
"It doesn't [force] sharia law on non-Muslims because they are free to observe their own faiths and beliefs."


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BENARNEWS- More than 1,000 people aged 19 to 24 gathered in Yogyakarta on Wednesday for the start of a three-day seminar on how young Indonesians can help prevent terrorism.
Representatives of 119 colleges in Central Java, as well as youth organizations and online activists from all over Indonesia were in town for the event, hosted by the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT).
Yogyakarta was chosen as the venue because, as reflected in its nickname – Student City – it draws students from across Indonesia, BNPT chief Saud Usman Nasution said in welcoming the participants to the event.
"On the commemoration of Youth Pledge Day, we are asking the young generation to join in anticipating the influence of radical thought, which has the potential to give birth to terrorism," Saud told them.
Youth Pledge Day, Oct. 28, recalls the day in 1928 when a youth congress committed to upholding the concept of Indonesian nationhood for what was then the Dutch East Indies.
The Islamic State (IS) movement or Daulah Islamiyah, as it is known in Bahasa Indonesia, has no tie to religion, Saud said.
Rather, it puts on the guise of religion, conjuring ideas of a sacred mission with heavenly rewards so that people – especially young people who feel marginalized – want to join its ranks, he said.
The BNPT is on the front line of efforts by Indonesian authorities to stem IS's efforts to recruit young Indonesians for its jihadist cause via social media and Islamic boarding schools.
A total of 514 Indonesians have travelled to Syria and Iraq to support IS, according to BNPT figures. About 52 of them have been killed there.
'An extraordinary sin'
A sense of injustice is one of two motivating factors behind violence committed by people with extremist beliefs, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said in a speech opening the Surabaya event.
"They feel the existing system is not adequate to address this injustice. So they choose acts of violence as a short cut," Lukman said.
A second factor, according to Lukman, is an incorrect understanding of religion that is then used to justify acts of terror.
The word "jihad" does not only pertain to physical warfare, he said. Jihad can mean devotion to one's parents, a struggle against despotic leaders, the pursuit of knowledge, helping the poor or becoming a devout pilgrim, as Lukman described it.
"Islam does not tolerate violence and the imposition of one's will on others. Killing a person is an extraordinary sin," he said.
Another speaker, Ali Mustafa Yaqub, chief imam of Jakarta's Istiqlal Mosque, urged the young audience to study Islam in depth, because a piecemeal understanding of religious teachings is also a cause of extremism, as he put it.
"Don't hear the hadith 'Fight infidels because their place is hell' and straightaway go slit someone's throat," Mustafa said.
"Become a Muslim who is friendly, not a Muslim who is angry," he added, to enthusiastic applause from his listeners.
Ex-militant shares story
Wednesday's program also featured a talk by Abdul Rahman Ayub, a former military commander for the Islamic State of Indonesia (NII), an Indonesian precursor to the Islamic State (IS).
Later, during his career as a militant, Ayub developed ties to al-Qaeda and its Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah. JI was the regional terrorist network that was responsible for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, the 2003 car bombing of the Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12, and 2005 suicide bombings in Bali that killed 22.
Ayub, who now gives de-radicalization talks on behalf of the BNPT to jailed terrorism convicts and young people, spoke about his experiences fighting in Afghanistan and later Mindanao, in the southern Philippines, during the 1980s and '90s.
A shallow understanding of religion was a primary factor in his decisions in those days, he said.
"Be careful with their doctrine that heathenizes the government, law enforcement, and the Republic of Indonesia," Ayub said.
Eager to learn
Wisnu Bahtiar, 21, a student of forestry at Gadjah Madah University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, said he rushed to register for the event as soon as he saw an ad for it on campus.
Only the first 60 people to register could get in, he said.
"I was curious to know what this discussion was about," said Wisnu, who also studies at Al Barokah Pesantren in Yogyakarta.
Nur Ulin, 22, who is studying Arabic literature at UGM, said he wanted to find out more about the doctrine of radical movements.
"On my campus, there are a lot of people who join radical Quran study groups, I don't want to be influenced by that, and I hope this event helps me to understand better such movements," he said


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BENARNEWS- An uneasy calm has settled over Aceh Singkil, a regency in Indonesia's Aceh province, after its Christian minority allowed local officials to demolish 10 churches following an outbreak of communal violence there.
The deal was touted as a solution for reducing tensions between the regency's tiny Christian community and the Muslim majority, after a mob burned down a local church earlier this month and a man was shot dead in the uproar.
As part of the deal, local Christian leaders acknowledged that the churches lacked official permits and agreed that local authorities could raze them.
But they are asking for clarity about whether they need to follow central government rules, or more stringent ones set by local leaders of the semi-autonomous province, on this point.
A 2006 decree issued by the ministries of Religious Affairs and Home Affairs stipulates that people who plan to a build a house of worship must show proof of communal support by obtaining signatures from 60 local residents.
The province's rules require at least 150 signatures from locals.
"Which one should we obey: the ministerial decree or the gubernatorial one?" Ferdinan Pandiangan, a Catholic leader in Aceh, told BenarNews.
"We respect central government rules set forth in the Joint Ministerial Decree, but we need clarification of rules that have been derived from it," he said.
'No firm action from the authorities'
A conservative brand of Islam pervades Aceh, the only Indonesian province where Sharia law is in force, but religious minorities face challenges too in obtaining permits elsewhere in Indonesia.
In the past eight years, 316 houses of worship were demolished, mostly because of conflicts over permits, according to the Setara Foundation, a Jakarta-based NGO.
According to Ihsan Ali Fauzi, a researcher who recently completed a study on the issue, communal tensions over construction of churches and worship spaces usually hinge on legal permits.
More important, argues Ihsan, director of the Center for the Study of Religion and Democracy, at Paramadina University in South Jakarta, is a failure of local governments to enforce the regulations around building permits consistently and fairly.
The absence of this, he says, only encourages vigilantism and violence.
"Their actions range from protests to demolitions," he told BenarNews, referring to vigilantes. "But there is no firm action from the authorities."
He cited the case of a conflict around efforts by GKI Yasmin, a Christian congregation in Bogor, West Java, to build a church.
Although the Indonesian Supreme Court ruled that the congregation had a valid permit for constructing a church, the government of Bogor sided with local Muslims who opposed the project.
The local government's decision not to uphold GKI Yasmin's permit did not help ease inter-communal tensions, Ihsan said.
On the other hand, Jakarta Gov. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama is an example of a local official who has consistently enforced the rules in a non-selective manner, according to Ihsan.
Basuki, who is nicknamed Ahok, has ordered his staff to seal mosques and churches that lack permits. Ahok is a Christian.
'It won't satisfy everyone'
Ma'ruf Amin, chairman of the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), Indonesia's top Islamic clerical body, agrees that enforcing the law around building permits for mosques, churches and temples is critical to preventing conflict between communities of different faiths.
But the recent tensions in Aceh Singkil were not the result of government intolerance toward a minority, Ma'ruf said, noting that the 10 churches were built without permits.
The Joint Ministerial Decree should not be blamed either, he said. The MUI leader was among religious leaders who advised the two ministries on crafting the decree nine years ago.
"If a conflict surfaces, that means the decree has been violated," Ma'ruf told BenarNews.
"The regulation was a compromise. It won't satisfy everyone. But it has been approved," he added.
Ihsan, the researcher, says the decree contains an often overlooked clause, whose enforcement could help prevent communal conflict. The clause protects the right of Indonesians of all faiths to conduct their religious activities safely, he said.
"Article 28 of the decree says that, in the case of a conflict, the central government must guarantee that worship activities continue. The spirit of the decree is not to limit, but to help," Ihsan said.


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BENARNEWS- Several years ago, Ahmad Rosid nearly traveled to Pakistan where he planned to join a militant group that was fighting the U.S.-led coalition in neighboring Afghanistan.
After graduating from a vocational high school, the young Indonesian drifted toward radicalism and was nearly hooked by jihadist doctrine. But he canceled the trip abroad, in the end, and has since renounced that lifestyle, Ahmad told BenarNews.
At 21, he has matured into the type of young person that the Indonesian government is looking to enlist in countering a threat in cyberspace from the Islamic State (IS) and other extremist groups that, according to officials, aggressively try to recruit Indonesians for the jihadist cause via Twitter, Facebook and other social media.
Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) now is looking to young people like Ahmad, who are skilled and trained in computers, to use those skills in the fight against online propaganda disseminated by IS and like-minded groups, as well as to hack into hostile websites if necessary.
In the city of Yogyakarta on Thursday, the BNPT hosted a workshop, titled "Peace in Cyberspace," which drew 300 participants – mostly young computer geeks and hackers – and whose aim was to encourage them to join it in the battle on the internet against IS.
According to Onno Purbo, an information technology (IT) expert, because Indonesia is targeted by "millions of cyber attacks" every day, the government needs the help of skilled youths in countering that threat.
"We have to learn techniques to attack in order to defend ourselves. So for me, seeing these young people learning such knowledge is like a self-defense," Onno told BenarNews.
The internet's pull
Compared with other social media, YouTube generates a heavy volume of traffic among radical groups because of its audiovisual power, said Nukman Luthfie, a social media expert.
"YouTube is used very often to spread ISIS teachings. Visual dissemination of a belief has the most impact," Nukman told BenarNews, using another acronym for the Islamic State (IS).
And, according to Agus Surya Bakti, the BNPT's deputy head of Prevention, Protection and De-radicalization programs, members of the young generation are especially vulnerable to online propaganda and recruitment.
Nowadays, he said, youngsters tend to learn about religion from the internet rather than from a trained teacher or scholar who has a deep understanding of Islam.
"We have ustads, or religious teachers, in the villages who are out of a job now because their students have switched to learn from the internet," Agus told BenarNews.
'It was getting serious'
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Ahmad was at Thursday's workshop.
It was part of a three-day seminar organized by the BNPT that ended Friday and drew more than 1,000 people aged 19 to 24. The seminar aimed to engage young Indonesians in a conversation about how they could contribute to preventing Islamic radicalism from spreading in their country, organizers said.
In 2012, Ahmad (pictured) graduated from a school in Bandar Lampung , a city in southern Sumatra where he had taken computer studies. He then earned a partial scholarship to attend a state university in Lampung province but dropped the plan to go to college, he said, because his parents couldn't afford to pay for the outstanding fees.
During that idle time in his life, Ahmad said a friend invited him to come to a Quran recital group in Bandar Lampung.
"I joined the group because I wanted to learn about how to read the Quran, but later on I started to learn more about the group's values. It was getting serious, I was told about what constitutes 'jihad' and I watched videos about jihad on YouTube," Ahmad recalled.
The more time that he spent time with the group, the more he became energized about wanting to undertake 'jihad' against the "infidels," he told BenarNews. That's around when he began thinking about going to Pakistan to take up arms against forces with the international coalition, he said.
That was late 2011, but when his parents found out about his plan, they uprooted and moved the family to West Sumatra province. Last year, Ahmad recalled, friends from the old group in Bandar Lampung tried to persuade him to rejoin the group, but he cuts ties with them when they urged him to take up the call for militant jihad, Ahmad said.
He has since joined a different kind of group, a band of young IT enthusiasts who call themselves Pondok Programmer.
"I was lucky to have found this group," Ahmad said.


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BENARNEWS- President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's recent meeting with members of the Orang Rimba tribe of Sumatra drew fresh attention to their plight, as pulpwood and palm oil companies take over forests they inhabit.
The meeting – the first ever by an Indonesian president – followed an announcement by Jakarta of new housing to be constructed for the tribe, but experts said it was not clear whether this would resolve the existential challenges faced by Orang Rimba.
Orang Rimba, which literally means People of the Jungle, mostly live in the Bukit Tigapuluh and Bukit Duabelas national parks in Jambi and Riau provinces, and number about 3,000 members, according to estimates.
That part of Central Sumatra is among the Indonesian regions worst hit by the peatland fires that have blanketed the entire region with haze in recent weeks and sent Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions soaring.
A semi-nomadic people
Rudy Sjaf, a spokesman for the Sumatra-based conservation organization WARSI, identified three categories of Orang Rimba: those who live in the deep forest; those who live on ancestral lands taken over by corporations; and those who have formed villages at the edge of the forest.
"They are semi-nomadic. But their homeland is important as a marker of their identity and history as a people. At birth, for example, their placenta is buried under a tree, which becomes a symbol of the person's survival," Rudy said.
"If the tree survives, the person lives well. But now the trees, valleys and rivers of this area have changed into lands for industrial and palm oil plantations."
WARSI says that a company whose palm oil plantation covered 40 thousand hectares rejected giving 114 hectares claimed by the indigenous people.
"The housing offer will help the third group. But the ones who most need help are the second group – those who are struggling to survive without their ancestral lands," Rudy said.
"The solution for the indigenous people who live in the forest is for the government to issue policies that favor the indigenous people. Like when the Gus Dur revoked the Industrial Plantation Area of Bukit Duabelas and turned it into a national park," Rudy said, referring to former President Abdurrahman Wahid.
'Part of our identity'
Speaking to reporters in Jakarta recently, Minister of Social Affairs Khofifah Indarparawansa said local officials in Merangin Regency of Jambi had agreed to set aside 1,000 hectares (2,472 acres) for the tribe. The land is planned to be a settlement of 500 houses where each family will have two hectares (five acres) to cultivate.
But anthropologist Adi Prasetyo said such settlements would not solve long-term issues faced by Orang Rimba.
The government approach is "to build settlements, to create villages, to tell them to choose a religion. In other words to 'normalize' them," he said.
Such a solution could lead to conflict between Orang Rimba and people outside their group, he said.
Having lost their livelihoods, Orang Rimba are often accused of stealing, or disturbing the palm oil plantations. They know almost nothing about how to make a living except as hunter gatherers, Adi added.
"In the long run they will have nothing, become jobless, and turn into beggars," Adi said.
He noted that these issues are not unique to the Orang Rimba, but also affect other indigenous people in Indonesia.
Communities of Sakai and Talang Mamak tribes in Sumatra and Orang Punan in Kalimantan, according to Adi, are examples of indigenous people who are threatened by encroaching development.
"They are losing their identity, while actually their identity is part of our identity as a nation. So the nation has to protect it," Adi said


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BENARNEWS- Human rights officials in Central Sulawesi say they will investigate whether security forces used excessive force in shooting dead a suspected member of the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group.
"The investigation is to find out whether the victim was shot dead because he was resisting, or not. If he did not, it's very clear that police violated human rights," said Dedi Askari, head of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) of Central Sulawesi, on Friday.
The law requires police to capture, investigate and prosecute suspects to establish their guilt, said Dedi, adding that his group would press charges if it was proven that the man was killed without resisting police.
Members of the Densus 88 counterterrorism squad and the police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob) shot dead a man, whom Dedi identified as Farouk, at around 8:30 p.m. Thursday in Salubanga, a village in Central Sulawesi province's Parigi Moutong regency. On Friday, the man's body was taken to Bhayangkara hospital in Palu for an autopsy.
Three farmers were recently beheaded in Parigi Moutong, one of the suspected haunts of the MIT, an armed militant group that has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State extremist group.
Shootout
In Palu, Central Sulawesi regional police spokesman Hari Suprapto told reporters that the death occurred during a shootout with police, but declined to give further details, including the name of the man shot dead, pending instructions from the National Police.
Local sources who did not want to be identified said security forces ambushed Farouk and others in the forest of Salubanga, triggering the firefight.
Afterwards, officers went to the scene to gather evidence while counterterror unit members continued to search at other locations for suspected MIT members.
Parigi Moutong is one of three operating points for a counterterrorism operation hunting down the MIT and its alleged leader, Santoso. The others are Poso and Sigi, also in Central Sulawesi.
Santoso and his followers have been included on the National Police wanted list since 2012. While Santoso is still at large, MIT members and sympathizers and followers have been arrested or killed in police operations.
Police sources linked Farouk to a series of terror attacks in Central Sulawesi and an August firefight in Poso Pesisir, where a Brimob officer and a member of the Santoso group were killed.


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BENARNEWS- A Christian congregation in Bogor, a city in West Java, is asking Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to intervene over a plan by the mayor to move the church elsewhere.
"Relocation is not the solution, so why should we be moved? What is our fault," Henrek Lokra, pastor of Indonesian Christian Church (GKI) Yasmin told BenarNews on Wednesday, as he responded to Bogor Mayor Bima Arya's plan to move it away from the Yasmin Garden Housing Complex so as to avoid clashes with its local opponents.
Joined by representatives of other church congregations and human rights organizations, Pastor Lokra held a press conference where he asked the national government to insist that local government leaders follow the law regarding building permits for churches and other worship sites.
Christians are a religious minority in Indonesia, the country with the world's largest Muslim population. According to Indonesian law, religious congregations with at least 90 members are required to obtain the signatures of at least 60 non-congregants from the surrounding community for permission to build a place of worship.
'Local government's authority'
GKI Yasmin's pleas did not draw support from the central government.
"Frankly we haven't heard a lot of reports on this problem. The building of a house of worship is a local government's authority," presidential spokesman Eko Sulistyo told BenarNews. "We would like to encourage that the problem be solved fairly as this is an old conflict."
The church and local government have been at odds over a building permit since 2008. In 2010, Indonesia's Supreme Court ordered the Bogor City government to restore the permit allowing the church.
The permit was revoked in 2011 based on a claim that the church had forged the signatures of residents who supported the project. City officials claim the church no longer exists since the building was sealed in 2011.
The mayor says that the church's parent organization, Western Synod, agreed to the relocation plan, although local church members say they were not part of the discussion. The congregation has conducted Sunday worship services in front of the Presidential Palace since 2012.
The Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, a Jakarta-based human rights advocacy group, regards this case as a symbol of intolerance in Indonesia. Over the last eight years, there have been at least 316 cases in which worship places were sealed or razed, mostly as result of disputes over building permits, according to research by Setara.


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BENARNEWS- Piles of garbage throughout Jakarta disappeared this week after Gov. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama asked police to escort trucks to landfills at Bantar Gebang and Cileungsi, two towns in neighboring West Java province.
The trash crisis is over for now, but Professor Enri Damanhuri of the Bandung Institute of Technology predicted that, sooner or later, another one would occur.
"What we see is a partial and temporary solution. The garbage is carried and dumped into the landfills, but that is no basic solution," Enri told BenarNews.
Dubbed Indonesia's first "garbage doctor," because of his 35 years working in waste management, Enri says other major cities in Indonesia face similar trash concerns.
"The garbage is just piled up, transported, and disposed through burning or burial," Enri said.  "Some trash is processed into compost or recycled but on a very small scale, barely noticeable."
Enri offers the 3-R solution practiced throughout much of the world – reduce, re-use, recycle – to cut down on the amount of trash hauled to landfills or incinerators.
Jakarta produces between 5,443 and 5,897 metric tons (6,000 and 6,500 U.S. tons) of garbage per day, which is turned over to private parties for incineration or burial. There is almost no organized effort to manage efforts to cut the amount.
"I heard that it is good to sort the garbage from plastic, papers materials," said Renny Ratnawati, a resident of Pasar Rebo sub-district in East Jakarta. "But why do I need to do this if the garbage collector will mix them back together again?"
Separating household recyclables from garbage is shaping the success of waste management, Enri said.
"Without first sorting it, it would be more difficult in processing the garbage, and more stuff needs to be thrown away. No country is successful in processing their garbage without educating people on how to sort it," he added.
Surabaya, a pioneer in waste management
The city of Surabaya, meanwhile, is able to transform waste into electricity through a project involving collecting gas contained in landfills.
"About 1,200 tons [1,059 metric tons] of garbage can be changed into 2 megawatts of electricity. We're working to be able to reach the highest potential of up to 10 megawatts," said Chalid Buchari, head of Surabaya's Department of Cleanliness and Landscaping.
The city also has succeeded in reducing waste from 2,086 metric tons (2,300 U.S. tons) per day before 2010 to about half that level today.
The toughest challenge is to getting the public to grasp why it is important to cut down on garbage, Chalid said.
"We need to do an endless, consistent and simultaneous campaign. Each week we have to work with the community, provide enough tools and encourage people to get involved," Chalid said.
The city pioneered the establishment of hundreds of "waste bank postals" that purchase recyclables.
With the help of technology applications developed by local students, the program will allow people to sell their recyclables through their smart phones.
"So people can establish an account, weigh and determine what kind of trash they have, and later converted to rupiah. We will decide the selling price and it is guaranteed not to fluctuate like the price offered by scavengers," Chalid said.


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BENARNEWS- Community leaders are trying to revive sweet potato cultivation in the highlands of central Papua, where consumption of this nutritious staple has been all but replaced by the rice-eating culture that dominates most of Indonesia.
Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are popular among peoples of the Pacific Islands because the plant can thrive in extreme weather.
In the Lapago and Meepago tribal areas of Papua – Indonesia's easternmost province – generations have relied on sweet potatoes as a food staple. In Meepago, it is called "nota," while in Lapago, it is "mbe" or "hipere."  Most Papuans call sweet potatoes "petatas."
Nobody knows when sweet potatoes were first cultivated in Papua's mountainous areas, but people in Wamena (Lapago) or Paniai (Meepago) claim the plant has been around since their ancestors settled the region.
Sweet potatoes, however, fell out of favor in Papua when former Indonesian President Suharto launched a campaign to make Indonesia self-sufficient through rice production. As a result, the Papuan tradition of eating petatas faded and local people became assimilated into a rice-eating culture that dominates most of Indonesia.
Wamena resident Kiloner Wenda recalls how local teachers used to tell students that those who ate sweet potatoes would not succeed in life.
"When I was still in elementary school, my teachers always said if I eat sweet potatoes, I will be stupid. Then every time our parents served sweet potatoes during meal times in our honai [Papuan traditional house], we doubted whether we should eat them," Kilonar told BenarNews.
"We always found a way to eat rice. Our parents found out somehow, and they worked harder to earn more money to buy us rice, although it was difficult for them as farmers."
But that was decades ago. Now, the government provides subsidized rice to villagers. Kilonar said the subsides spoiled people, causing many to leave farming.
"It is tragic. When the world has been carrying out efforts in diversifying foods, our people decided to turn to consuming rice," he said.
Campaign supports sweet potato consumption
In addition, soaring transportation costs in Papua have made it hard for farmers to sell their sweet potatoes in villages and cities. Seven years ago, a campaign began to encourage farmers in Jayawijaya district to bring their crops to appointed collection points.
Kiloner set up a collection point in Kimbim village.
He collected, weighed, assessed and transported the sweet potatoes to the nearby city of Wamena, hoping to sell off the petatas. Over the next few days, he distributed the sales proceeds to the farmers.
The effort changed people's views on sweet potatoes.
"Now we have more money for the kids to go to school," Maria Asalokobal, of Kimbim village, told BenarNews. "We usually planted the crop only to feed the family and cattle."
Petatas deeply rooted in culture
In the Baliem Valley, farming is a way of life passed down from generation to generation.
"And sweet potatoes to the people of Baliem is as important as the people themselves. The plant does not just contain high nutrients, but also traditional values. Educational values were taught and passed to kids from their parents on farms where sweet potatoes are cultivated," Kiloner said.
"Parents taught everything about life, including ethics, morals and family education."
In 2009, Asalokobal, chief of the tribe in the Assologaima area, gave 10 hectares (24.7 acres) for people to start cultivating sweet potatoes again, because he worried about the future of his tribe and its traditions. The changes, he said, have happened so fast.
"The subisidized rice program still goes on. That makes villagers lazy to start farming again. They decided to stay in big cities. I still own a vast [piece of] land. I will let them farm sweet potatoes because that's the way we live, the people of Baliem," he said.


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BENARNEWS- Authorities are investigating an online video in which "fighters for the Islamic State" threaten to fly its flag from Indonesia's presidential palace and destroy Jakarta's police force.
The nine-minute, 43-second video uploaded on Facebook Saturday purports to contain the voice of Indonesia's most-wanted militant urging Indonesians to emigrate to the so-called "Islamic State" or "chase out the heathen" back home.
"Our team is still investigating. Is that really Santoso's voice? Then where and when was the video made?" National Police spokesman Agus Rianto told BenarNews on Tuesday.
Santoso heads the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT), a descendant of al-Qaeda affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah, the most active armed militant group in Indonesia currently. The MIT declared its allegiance to IS in mid-2014.
Capacity
Indonesia security officials believe Santoso is hiding in the jungles of Central Sulawesi with about 30 followers.
Asked about the authenticity of the video, Wawan Purwanto, a staff expert at the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) said, "our initial assessment is, that is Santoso's voice," pending verification by forensics experts.
But IS affiliates in Indonesia lack capacity to carry out large-scale attacks like the one in Paris earlier this month, Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), told a panel discussion at the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club late Monday.
Still, terror attacks may increase, she warned. Authorities need to be wary of some 50 Indonesians who have returned from Syria, including about 15 fighters.
"They are skilled and trained in combat, and could pass their abilities and their ideologies to another generation," she said.
She estimated there are about 250 Indonesians fighting with IS in the Middle East, and 50 of them have died in Syria since March, mostly in aerial bombardments by international anti-IS forces.
About 40 Indonesian women and 100 children under the age of 15 have also gone to IS-controlled lands with their husbands or fathers, she said.
"Families that go to Syria are usually prepared to leave Indonesia forever. They have sold all their possessions to raise money for the trip and their life there," Andi Rachmianto, a security official at Indonesia's foreign affairs ministry, told the same panel.
Empty threats?
Ansyaad Mbai, the former BNPT chief, urged police to take the new video threat seriously, even while it is still being authenticated.
But, he noted, based on observations of past patterns, terrorists do not usually issue a threat before acting.
"Terrorists don't play around with threats," said Ansyaad, "but we must remain vigilant, although we are still not yet certain on the authenticity of the video."
He recalled a threat issued by another ISIS sympathizer, Abu Jandal alias Salim Mubarak Attamimi, in April, allegedly from Syria.
Abu Jandal threatened to overrun the Nusakambangan Penitentiary to free Abu Bakar Bashir, the spiritual leader of Jemaah Islamiyah. In the end, nothing happened.
Moreover, Santoso previously threatened to destroy Jakarta police and to occupy the presidential palace. In July 2013, he declared war against Densus 88, the elite anti-terrorism unit of the Indonesian police, in a video posted to YouTube.


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BENARNEWS- At a training session in South Jakarta in mid-November, a military officer taught martial arts to 300 students from a public school.
The activity was part of a defense program recently added to Indonesia's national curriculum. The program, which is mandatory for schools in several provinces, marks the latest move by the Indonesian military (TNI) to make its presence felt in society, as well as gain more control over combatting drug trafficking and terrorism – areas traditionally handled by the police.
Human rights advocates and other observers, however, worry that the military is now trying to expand its authority at a time when past abuses allegedly committed by TNI members remain unresolved.
"Numerous human rights violations cases during the reformation period have not been resolved yet," Haris Azhar, director of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS), told BenarNews.
He was referring to the so-called reformation era that followed the end of the Suharto regime (1967-98), during which the military controlled many aspects of Indonesian society.
"What if similar cases happen in the near future? What is the resolution, while the old cases have not yet been resolved," Haris added.
Such concerns expressed by Haris and other observers have deepened with a draft of a presidential decree that has been circulating in recent weeks, and which proposes to expand the military's powers by placing the TNI directly under the president's authority and not under the Ministry of Defense, where the military's authority still rests.
"The document being discussed by the defense ministry and TNI headquarters clearly intends to restore the TNI's role in maintaining public order and security, which is now the job of the police," Tempo, an Indonesian news publication, said in an editorial published last month.
"If this proposal moves forward, it will be a betrayal of the reform movement," Tempo opined.
Greater military role?
Fears that the military might be trying to restore its past prominent role – which, at times, was repressive under Suharto – first crept in back in March and April, when the TNI set up a special command to help police fight terrorists, and military forces staged counter-terrorism drills in Poso.
Poso, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, is a hotbed of terrorist activity where the country's most wanted militant, Santoso, heads the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group.
The drills were unusual because the authority for combating terrorists formally rests with the National Police through its anti-terrorism unit, Densus 88.
A few weeks later, the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), a Jakarta-based think-tank, published a report that examined the very question of the Indonesian military's expanding role.
According to IPAC, the military is trying to increase its authority to combat terrorists by persuading the country's new president, Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, to authorize an expansion of its powers.
"The TNI has managed to position itself as the president's reliable ally at a time when he is under political pressure from all sides," IPAC Director Sidney Jones said when the institute released its report on May 25. "It is more important than ever that the Indonesian parliament exercise its oversight role and ensure that the military restricts itself to defence, narrowly defined."
"There would be less concern about the expansion of the TNI's role if there had been any progress in the last decade toward improving military accountability, but there has been almost none," Jones added.
'Our obligation'
In October, the Jakarta Post quoted Gen. Moeldoko, the former head of Indonesia's armed forces, as saying that an expansion of the military's authority had been discussed during his command of TNI. But military spokesman Tatang Sulaiman denied that the former TNI chief, who retired a few months ago, had talked about widening the military's powers.
"What authority expansion?" Tatang said. "t is our obligation to guard the country's strategic assets and help police," Tatang said.
He also rejected allegations that the military was trying to undermine the police's authority in combating terrorism and drugs.
"Our military have 14 major obligations, which includes law enforcement. If we saw people throwing a drug party in front of us while the police was absent at the moment, do you think our personnel would just neglect it?" Tatang said.
Human rights advocates worry, nonetheless, that President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo – who took office in October 2014 after campaigning on a pledge of making improvements to Indonesia's young democracy – might give in to the military's demand for a wider role by agreeing to implement the controversial decree.
"Who knows if the deal is silently signed? It's dangerous. We need to keep our eyes on it," said Haris of KontraS.


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BENARNEWS- A pale morning sun hangs over a temple complex somewhere in Java. A man washes his hands in preparation for prayer. A wayang puppet glides across a screen, someone studies the Quran, people kneel in unison for prayer.
Interrupting these images are scenes of shocking contrast: Islamic State (IS) fighters pointing guns at the heads of people kneeling in front of them, prisoners begging for their lives.
A new film by Nahdlatul Ulama – Indonesia's largest Muslim organization, with some 50 million members – challenges what it says is extremism seeping into Indonesia from outside with a meditation on the country's own tolerant brand of Islam and multi-faith society.
In the film's trailer, the voice of NU leader Mustofa Busri evokes the Wali Songo or "nine saints" who spread Islam in Indonesia in the 15th century, inviting viewers to reexamine their views on life.
"What is our concept of God? What is our concept of brotherhood?" his gentle, lecturing tone asks as the images of suffering and brutality flick by.
Assimilating
The documentary film "The Divine Grace of Islam Nusantara" debuted at the 15th congress of the NU youth group Gerakan Pemuda Ansor, in Sleman, Yogyakarta, in late November.
"Through this film, we want to introduce Nusantara Islam to the world, Indonesia's Islam," Marsudi Syuhud, the secretary general of the NU Executive Board, told BenarNews.
Nusantara means archipelago in Bahasa Indonesia and is often used to refer to the country itself.
The film underlines the importance of living in harmony with others even when there are differences in values, Marsudi said.
"The Wali Songo mingled with the people here, assimilating Islamic teachings with the local culture. In Java for example, the Wali Songo preached using wayang, because that is the culture of the people here," he told BenarNews.
The approach was made without violence, he said, and as a result Islam spread rapidly without bloodshed – enhancing but not obliterating existing local culture.
But these days there are those who do not accept the tolerance that mark Indonesian Islam, he said.
"They invite the spread of something supposedly Islamic ... using force and violence, like ISIS," he said, referring to the so-called Islamic State militant group.
The Indonesian government has been grappling since last year with a challenge posed by IS and its supporters recruiting young Indonesians for its jihadist cause via social media.
The authorities don't have an exact number on how many Indonesians have sworn allegiance to the extremist group.
According to figures disseminated by the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) and other governmental agencies, the number of Indonesians who have traveled to Syria or Iraq to join IS ranges from 350 to 800, including about 60 who have been killed in combat in that region.
"This kind of thing does not make Islam big, good, modern and civilized. In fact it just ruins a country," Marsudi said.
Concerning
Signs of emerging radicalism and wahhabism in society are concerning, said Slamet Effendi Yusuf, former deputy head of the NU.
"So we want to convey an Islam that is moderate, tolerant. Nusantara Islam is a blessing for the world, an Islam that comes not to wipe out what is on earth, but to improve it," Slamet told BenarNews.
NU itself, he went on to say, accepts that Indonesian society is plural, and will not accept concepts such as a religion-based state.
"The Republic of Indonesia is final. That is Nusantara Islam, which does not take extreme views on things. Transnational teachings, radicalism and extremism cannot be accepted," he stressed.
He said international response to the 90-minute film has been positive.
"I just returned from a promotional trip to several countries. Many international clerics gave it an extraordinary welcome. This kind of viewpoint is needed when a small faction of Muslims adopts extreme views," he said.
'More massive effort needed'
NU officials say they will show the movie in conferences and are counting on social media to make it go "viral."
"Looking forward to the full movie. I believe Indonesia can be a role model of Muslim in the modern world," one person commented on the trailer posted on YouTube.
"As an Indonesian Muslim, I'm proud of my country's harmony and pluralism," another viewer said.
Novriantoni Kahar, a lecturer at Paramadina University in Jakarta and commentator on Islamic issues, said the film is a good effort to repulse radical thinking.
"But a more massive effort is needed, something structured and systematic. It needs young people dedicated to producing content for an anti-ISIS campaign that is intelligent and creative," he told BenarNews.
More mediums are needed, such as cartoons and satire, produced on a massive scale, to attract young people who might otherwise be interested by radical ideologies.
"For raising the awareness of NU youth, this film is pretty good. But to reach a wider audience, it is very lacking. It needs collaboration with other organizations, such as Muhammadiyah," he said, referring to Indonesia's second largest Muslim organization.


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BENARNEWS- A corruption scandal linking the speaker of Indonesia's parliament to the renegotiation of a lucrative gold and copper mining contract has infuriated Indonesians and dominated headlines in recent weeks.
A parliamentary ethics committee and Indonesian authorities have now finally opened investigations into the scandal.
It surrounds House Speaker Setya Novanto and allegations that he was tape-recorded asking for a combined 20 percent-stake on behalf of Indonesia's president and vice president, in exchange for guaranteeing a new contract to PT Freeport Indonesia (PTFI), the Indonesian subsidiary of the U.S.-based mining giant Freeport-McMoran.
This week, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo vented his anger while addressing the public about the scandal for the first time.
"I am okay with being called a crazy president or stubborn president. But when it comes to [misuse of] authority, profiteering, asking for an 11 percent share, that I don't want," Joko told a news conference at the Presidential Palace in Jakarta late Monday, referring to the percentage of PTFI shares that Setya had allegedly demanded on the president's behalf.
Indonesians have been clamoring for Setya, a member of the opposition Golkar party, to resign although he proclaimed his innocence in testifying before a parliamentary ethics hearing earlier on Monday.
According to a written statement he reportedly read at the closed-door hearing, Setya said he had been "defamed" by Sudirman Said, the minister of energy and mineral resources who reported his alleged wrongdoing.
"I strongly object that this tape was unlawfully obtained," he went on to say.
Big deal
Freeport, which has been in Indonesia since the 1960s, operates the Grasberg mine complex in the far eastern of province of Papua. It is one of the world's largest gold and copper mines.
In 2014, Freeport made nearly U.S. $2 billion in copper sales from its Indonesian operations and U.S. $1.4 billion in sales of gold mined in the country, according to a calculation of figures culled from the firm's last annual report.
The firm's contract for the Grasberg mine is set to expire in 2021. Under Indonesian law, companies can renegotiate contracts two years before they expire, but officials with Freeport's Indonesian subsidiary evidently have already been discussing the 20-year extension.
PTFI officials are worried that 2019 is too late, because the company has a long-term plan to invest U.S. $17 billion in developing new underground pits at Grasberg Mountain, according to an op-ed piece in the Jakarta Post.
Accountability
The recording – which has now been made public – is from a June 7 meeting attended by Setya, PTFI Indonesia Director Maroef Sjamsoeddin, and Muhammad Riza Chalid, an Indonesian oil and gas tycoon, who left Indonesia earlier this week.
In testimony to the parliamentary ethics panel, Maroef said he had recorded the conversation because of the controversy surrounding PTFI operating practices over the years, Reuters reported.
"The parliament speaker and his friend Rza told me they wanted a 20 percent stake and also asked for a hydroelectric power project," the PTFI chief testified, according to Reuters.
Sudirman later reported the case of alleged extortion to a parliamentary ethics committee, and handed it a transcript of what was said in the secret meeting.
The House Ethics Council declined to investigate the complaint immediately, saying he lacked the authority to lodge a complaint.
But, amid mounting public anger over the scandal, the council finally opened an investigation. It convened its first hearings on the matter last week, when Sudirman and Maroef testified before the council in sessions that were open to the public.
The ethics council has yet to decide whether the house speaker will be sanctioned for an alleged ethical breach.
Separately, authorities say they have opened a criminal investigation into the matter.
Attorney-General H.M. Prasetyo has questioned Maroef Sjamsoeddin and Sudirman Said, and entered the mobile phone that was used to record the secret meeting into the body of evidence.
Good for Indonesia?
Meanwhile, some Indonesians are questioning whether Indonesia should award a new contract to Freeport, and whether this would be in the best interests of impoverished Papua and the rest of the nation.
In the op-ed published in the Post, Winarno Zain, a commissioner at a publicly listed oil and gas service company, argued that the time had come for Indonesia to take control of its precious metal deposits, including the gold and copper deposits at Grasberg Mountain.
"Freeport has been a thorn in the pride and consciousness of many Indonesians," Winarno wrote. "It has been a source of resentment among Indonesian because after 70 years of independence, the country is not in control of its richest mineral resources.
"Freeport operations have created constant questions among Indonesians about whether the government's management of its natural resources has been in line with the spirit of the Constitution – providing utmost prosperity to the Indonesian people through its control over natural resources," he added.
More bitter voices have come from Papua, where activists and lawmakers alike complain that the company has disregarded the welfare of local people, while dredging trillions of dollars from their land and despoiling the environment.
Papua Gov. Lukas Enembe told BenarNews he wanted the central government to involve the local government in every discussion of the PTFI contract.
"Many people now know about Papua, but are very clever at talking .... We don't want to be like Jakarta people who speak only for their own personal interests," he said.


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BENARNEWS- The historic climate deal struck near Paris on Saturday could have gone farther to shield developing and vulnerable countries from threats posed by global warming, environmental officials and activists from India, Indonesia and Bangladesh say.
"We are of the opinion that the agreement could have been more ambitious," Prakash Javadekar, India's environment minister who headed its delegation to the U.N. Conference on Climate Change, said the day after India and 194 other countries struck the deal in Le Bourget, France.
They agreed to work collectively to keep Earth's temperature rise "well below" 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels, and "to pursue efforts" to limit a planetary temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), according to the United Nations.
The so-called Paris Agreement also calls for participating countries to submit updated plans for curbing greenhouse gas emissions every five years, the U.N. said. Greenhouse gases trap heat in the Earth's atmosphere, causing polar icecaps to melt and sea levels to rise.
Under the deal, which is to be signed in New York on April 22, 2016 – Earth Day – the world's developed countries have set a goal of helping poorer countries meet their goals for reducing emissions to the tune of at least U.S. $100 billion a year in financing by 2020.
"The Paris Agreement is a monumental triumph for people and our planet ... It sets the stage for progress in ending poverty, strengthening peace and ensuring a life of dignity and opportunity for all," U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Monday.
The agreement also signified the first time that the world's two biggest economies and top polluters – the United States and China – agreed along with other nations to work toward limiting greenhouse gases and moving toward greener energy sources.
Yet officials and environmental conservationists from the three most populous countries in South and Southeast Asia described the deal as a set of compromises that could have mixed effects in India, Indonesia and Bangladesh.
"We share the concern of several friends that this agreement does not put us on the path to prevent temperature rise below 2 degrees Celsius and that the actions of developed countries are far below their historical responsibilities and fair shares," Minister Javadekar said on Sunday.
'Weak on commitments'
The latest draft of the Paris accord was "weak on commitments and ambition since there are no collective targets for developed countries," Chandra Bhushan, deputy director of the Center for Science and Environment, a New Delhi think-tank, told BenarNews.
India, the world's second most populous country, is its fourth top emitter of greenhouse gasses, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI).
In Bangladesh, Farid Uddin Ahmed, executive director of the Arannayk Foundation (Bangladesh Tropical Forest Conservation Foundation), an NGO that receives World Bank and U.S. funding, criticized the agreement for not being legally binding where developed countries are concerned.
"What Bangladesh and the least developed countries want is to set a legal binding for the polluting countries to restrict emission of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere," Ahmed told BenarNews.
Bangladesh, the world's eighth most crowded country, may lose low-lying areas along its coast and territorial islands due to rising water levels caused by a warmer atmosphere.
"The polluting countries must pay compensation for the damage caused by their pollution. Besides, the proposal to give loans, not compensation, to the affected countries is unfair. We, as a victim of the pollution of the industrial nations, must be paid compensation – not loans," Ahmed said.
Smaller islands in Indonesia's sprawling island-chain are also vulnerable to rising sea levels, but the Paris accord won't go nearly far enough to save those isles, warned Abdon Nababan, who heads the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN).
"Too much compromise! While it's called historic, it will be devastating for countries like us," Abdon said of the Paris deal.
Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous nation and, according to WRI, its sixth biggest emitter of greenhouse gases.
"We have 10,000 small islands with 70 million indigenous people. We need a far more progressive accord – it should be cut under 1.5 degree Celsius," he added.
"What will we do when the climate wipes our shores and people?"
'This is substantial'
But others hailed the accord.
"For the first time in history, both the U.S. and China supported the COP21 deal," former Indonesian Environment Minister Emil Salim told BenarNews, referring to the name of the conference that culminated in the deal.
"This is substantial because this could be the source of funding and assistance for the transfer of clean energy technology for developing countries, including Indonesia."
Indonesia should now wean itself off dirty, coal-based fuel and invest in solar energy, geothermal energy, greener modes of transportation and other cleaner technologies, he said.
The country should also move to safeguard forests and natural resources, including peat-rich areas where illegal agricultural fires have caused a haze that blankets the region almost every year, Emil said.
In Bangkok, Tara Buakamsri, the Thailand country director for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, expressed hope that Thailand and the other countries would do their part to help humanity cap greenhouse gas emissions.
"We've come to a point for us all to move forward, though it may take a big while to materialize the essence of the Paris Agreement," Tara told BenarNews.
"But the movement of millions of people around the world to reduce the use of fossilized fuel will be the heart of climate protection."


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BENARNEWS- Wildfires between June and October that burned 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) cost Indonesia an estimated U.S. $16.1 billion while millions in the region suffered, according to the Indonesia Economic Quarterly report issued Tuesday by The World Bank.
"The vast economic and environmental crisis is repeated year after year, as a few hundred businesses and a few thousand farmers seek to profit from land and plantation speculation practices, while tens of millions of Indonesians suffer health costs and economic disruptions," the report stated.
$16.1 billion is 1.9 percent of Indonesia's gross domestic product and more than double the reconstruction cost following the 2004 Aceh tsunami that killed thousands of people, according to the report.
"Now is the time for Indonesia to address the underlying drivers of man-made fires, enforce laws and revise policies in order to reduce the risk of these economic disasters from recurring," The World Bank said.
Few people benefit
The fires, which covered an area 4½ times the size of Bali, were driven largely by palm oil production, according to the report. Peatland fires to clear land for palm oil plantations accounted for about a third of the blazes and created a noxious haze that disrupted trade, transportation and tourism, closed schools and negatively affected people's health.
In early October, smog forced schools to close across Malaysia, hospitalized dozens in southern Thailand and forced international sporting events in Kuala Lumpur and Singapore to be cancelled.
In September and October, during the peak of this year's especially noxious fires, Indonesia's daily greenhouse gas emissions exceeded daily emissions from the entire U.S. economy on 26 days, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington D.C.-based environmental group. The U.S. economy is 20 times larger than Indonesia's.
"These areas store some of the highest quantities of carbon on earth, accumulated over thousands of years," WRI said in October. "Draining and burning these lands for agricultural expansion (such as conversion to oil palm or pulpwood plantations) leads to huge spikes in greenhouse gas emissions."
The profits from palm oil amount to at least U.S. $3,077 per hectare in three years, but the benefits extend to a select few, The World Bank said. About 85 percent of the cash flow goes to those able to take a financial risk such as plantation developers.
In October, President Joko Widodo called for a moratorium that would effectively halt the legal conversion of peatland into agricultural land and for peatland restoration, The World Bank reported.
Indonesian officials on Thursday plan to name the companies responsible for the illegal fires and suspend their business licenses while determining if they should face charges of breaching environmental laws, The Strait Times reported.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian rescue teams expected to resume their search on Monday for 77 people still missing at sea, after their ferry ran into bad conditions, took on water and sank near Sulawesi island on Saturday night, officials said.
As of late Sunday afternoon (local time), rescuers had pulled 39 people out of the water alive, but the official death toll stood at three. By day's end, search teams had recovered the bodies of two children and a woman.
Bad weather, rough conditions and poor visibility in Bone Bay prevented rescuers from carrying on Sunday night with the search for more survivors, according to officials.
The New Marina, a fiberglass boat, was carrying 109 passengers and 10 crew members as crossed the bay on Saturday afternoon, from Kolaka, in Southeast Sulawesi province to Siwa, in South Sulawesi province. Nineteen children, including 14 babies, were on board.
"Because the currents are so strong toward the waters of north Kolaka, we are focusing on north Kolaka, searching it from the sea to the coast, as the victims could have drifted toward the coast," Poki Azikin, who heads the Makassar office of the National Search and Rescue Agency, told BenarNews.
The boat sank 22.5 km (24 miles) off the coast of Wajo district in South Sulawesi, officials said.
"From 42 people evacuated, three of them were dead," Adjunct Commissioner M. Guntur, who serves as the chief of police in Wajo, told BenarNews.
The 39 survivors were rushed to area hospitals.
The search operation, Poki said, consisted of military and police units, government agencies and members of the community.
"We also involve fishermen in this search operation. We sent two large ships, six rubber boats and a helicopter to facilitate the search at the site," Poki said.
In fact, before dawn broke on Sunday, a local fisherman rescued four people from the boat who were lost at sea, including a boy.
Fisherman Amiruddin told reporters that he heard a woman crying for help at around 2 a.m. while he was fishing on the bay.
"I went to where the voice came from and I saw a woman laying on her back in her safety float with a little boy on the top of her. I directly helped them and took them to my boat," Amiruddin said.
Then he spotted two more survivors and pulled them into his boat. He said all four looked weak, so he gave them some food.
"Their condition is very weak. They have been evacuated to a hospital in Siwa to be treated. Hopefully they are fine," Guntur, the police chief for Wajo, told BenarNews earlier on Sunday, referring to the one group of four survivors.
Doomed voyage
It remained unclear whether mechanical failure played a role in the accident. Late Saturday, local media reports conflicted as to whether the boat had sunk or was adrift at sea after its engine broke down, as the vessel encountered strong winds and high waves.
The ferry was scheduled to arrive at Siwa at 3 p.m. Saturday (local time). The boat reportedly sent out a distress signal before radio contact with it was lost at around 2:30 p.m., Ridwan, a port official in Palopo, South Sulawesi, told BenarNews.
After departing from Kolaka, the captain informed the harbor master about the bad weather and rough waters, said Andi Salahatu Lani, head of the port authority in Bangsalee.
After radio contact was lost, the port authority launched an operation to reach the stranded boat, but bad conditions hampered the effort, and the ferry sank around 9:30 p.m., officials said.
"The ship's captain and the crew had contacted us in Siwa. They requested us to send another ship  to evacuate the passengers because the waves were reaching a height of 6 meters [19.6 feet], "Andi told BenarNews.
String of accidents
Saturday's sinking of the ferry off Sulawesi was at least the third maritime accident reported since mid-November in or near Indonesian waters.
Just two days earlier, six Philippine crew members of the Danish cargo ship Thorco Cloud were declared missing after it collided with a chemical tanker, the Stolt Commitment, approximately 13 km (8 miles) off Batam island in western Indonesian, the Associated Press reported.
On Nov. 16, more than 100 passengers were evacuated safely or rescued when the ship Wihan Sejahtera sand in Lamong Bay, in Surabaya, according to AFP.
And in early September, 64 people drowned when a boat full of Indonesian workers bound from Malaysia to Aceh province, on Sumatra, sank off the Malaysian coast.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian authorities on Sunday announced the arrests of at least six suspected jihadists who, officials said, were plotting terrorist attacks targeting Christmas and New Year celebrations in Java and Sumatra as well as Indonesia's tiny Shiite Muslim minority, according to news reports.
The six to seven suspects, who include alleged supporters or members of the Islamic State (IS) extremist group, were picked up Friday and Saturday in raids by Densus 88, the national police's elite counterterrorist squad, in cities across Java island, a local newspaper and news agencies reported.
According to AFP, the suspects were linked to a plot to carry out a suicide bombing in Jakarta during New Year festivities, when many members of the country's Christian minority would be out and about ringing in 2016.
One of the suspects, Asep Urip, 31, was identified as a teacher at a pesantren – or Islamic boarding school – in Central Java province, AFP reported. A 35-year-old pupil of Asep, Zaenal, was being "groomed" to carry out an imminent attack, police alleged.
"From early information, it's known that Zaenal was a candidate for a suicide bombing in Jakarta to be conducted on New Year's 2016," AFP quoted police documents linked to the arrests as saying.
"They had made plans for actions in the near term, in relation to Christmas and New Year," Budhi Herdi Susianto, chief of police in the East Java regency of Mojokerto, told Metro TV, according to Reuters.
The Jakarta Globe quoted senior police officials as saying that the suspects belonged to a network influenced by IS.
"This terrorist network was preparing for bombing attacks in various locations in Indonesia. They are a mix of ISIS supporters," National Police Chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said, using another acronym for IS. "Some are ISIS members and others are sympathizers."
Police mounted the raids based on intelligence reports from the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Australian Federal Police, Badrodin added.
Densus 88 arrested three of the suspects in Central Java province and another three in West Java province. Bomb-making materials, jihadist manuals and a map of greater Jakarta were seized during one of the raids, the Globe said.
"Based on the outcome of initial questioning, the suspects said they were planning to bomb a series of Shiite communities in Pekalongan [in Central Java], Bandung and Pekanbaru [in Riau]," an anonymous source at national police headquarters in Jakarta told the newspaper.
Citing the acting Densus chief, Senior Commander Edy Hartono, the Globe said the suspects seemed to be "deeply influenced by Islamic State's extremist views and wanted to replicate the group's attacks on Shiites, whom the militants view as heretics."
Indonesia, the world's largest Muslim country, is predominantly Sunni.
"They were going to make a cellphone-activated bomb and would have carried out [an attack] if we hadn't stopped them," Edy said.
According to the Associated Press, seven suspects were arrested during the raids, including one Abdul Karim (also known as Abu Jundi). The AP quoted a local police official as saying that the suspect was believed to be an expert in shooting and bomb-building because of his membership in Jemaah Islamiyah – the al-Qaeda affiliate in Southeast Asia that carried out the 2002 Bali bombings.
Security build-up to Christian holidays
The arrests on Friday and Saturday took place after Indonesian officials recently raised the terror threat level. Last week, officials also announced plans to deploy 150,000 security personnel to protect churches and other public places nationwide where Christians gather.
The authorities also called on members of Muslim and Buddhist youth groups to reach out to and help protect Christians from the threat of Islamist attacks during the run-up to Christmas and New Year's Day.
The arrests came as Indonesian police and counterterrorist officials grapple with what they say is an emerging threat from IS efforts to indoctrinate and recruit your Indonesians for its cause via social media and other means. The authorities have also warned that Indonesian IS recruits and veterans returning from combat duty in Iraq or Syria could plot terror attacks on home soil.
In August, Indonesian police arrested three people suspected of having links to IS and who allegedly were planning to launch bomb attacks during Independence Day festivities, on Aug. 17, AFP reported.
The authorities, however, do not have an exact number on how many Indonesians have sworn allegiance to the extremist group.
According to figures disseminated by the BNPT and other governmental agencies, the number of Indonesians who have traveled to Syria or Iraq to join IS ranges from 350 to 800, including about 60 who have been killed in combat in that region.
In addition to the latest arrests and the arrests of three suspects in August, eight men are currently standing trial in Jakarta for suspected links to IS.


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BENARNEWS- The Indonesian government announced Monday it had acted against 23 companies that, officials said, were involved in burning forest and peatland in the country.
Government officials identified the companies by acronyms only, despite a promise by President Joko Widodo to reveal by year's end the names of companies implicated in the environmental disaster.
"It is our responsibility to inform the public that legal actions have been taken, including withdrawal of licenses," Coordinating Minister for Politics, Legal and Security Affairs Luhut Pandjaitan told a press conference at his ministry late Monday.
"Licenses have been revoked from three companies. Sixteen have had their licenses suspended and four companies are subject to government-imposed sanctions," Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya told reporters.
The sanctions include seizing a company's land for up to two years and reviewing its licenses.
The fires, set to clear land for economic activity, burned 2.6 million hectares (6.4 million acres) between June and October and cost Indonesia an estimated U.S. $16.1 billion, the World Bank said last week in its latest Indonesia Economic Quarterly report.
That sum is more than twice the cost of the reconstruction of Aceh following the 2004 tsunami, the World Bank said.
Smoke from the fires choked nearby countries for weeks, including Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines, and sent Indonesia's greenhouse gas emissions soaring.
Foreign and domestic
Companies using fire to clear land for economic activity are both domestic and foreign, and include firms with significant shareholders in Malaysia, Australia and China, officials said Monday.
Willem Rampangilei, head of the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), said that one of the companies whose license had been suspended was PT BMH, a subsidiary of Sinar Mas that operates in South Sumatra. Sinar Mas is one of the largest conglomerates in Indonesia.
At the same press conference, National Police chief Badrodin Haiti said his forces were pursuing 301 cases of forest arson committed by individuals and corporations, and three had already been referred to the attorney general's office.
"Of the three cases that have been submitted to the attorney general, there is a company whose shares are owned by China, PT ASP, a company located in Central Kalimantan. Two others are local companies: PT BA and PT BH," he said.
The two government ministers, Luhut and Siti, pledged to coordinate efforts and increase oversight so the fires are not repeated on the same scale next year.
In September and October, during the peak of this year's fires, Indonesia's daily greenhouse gas emissions exceeded daily emissions from the entire U.S. economy on 26 days, according to the World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington D.C.-based environmental group. Indonesia's fires have plagued the region since the late 1990s.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia's national police force is on its highest level of alert after the arrests of nine people who were plotting year-end terror attacks, senior officials said Monday.
The nine suspects included some with alleged ties to the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. They were conspiring to launch attacks on government, police and counterterrorism officials, as well as places of worship and public gathering spots, police said.
"They planned to take action this December, to stage a 'big concert' in Indonesia to make international news," Anton Charliyan, the spokesman for national police, told a news conference in Jakarta.
Five of the suspects had received permission from an IS leader based in Syria to carry out the attacks in Indonesia, police said.
"They received transfers of funds ... they have a connection with Syria," Reuters quoted Anton as saying.
Police picked up the suspects in a series of operations across Java on Friday and Saturday.
Following the arrests, "Police are confirming a level-one alert. We don't want to be caught unaware," Anton said.
"Obviously, they are targeting government officials, Densus 88 officials, BNPT officials, and places of worship," he said. Densus 88 is the police force's elite counterterrorist wing and BNPT is the Indonesian acronym for the National Counterterrorism Agency.
But Anton did not give specific details about the suspects' alleged targets. According to other reports, Jakarta Metropolitan Police Headquarters was among the targets of the disrupted plot.
On Sunday, Agence France-Presse reported that the suspects were connected to a plot to carry out a suicide bombing in Jakarta during New Year festivities. Media reports from Dec. 20 also quoted police officials as saying that the suspects also planned to attack members of Indonesia's small Shiite minority.
Nine swept up
Of the nine suspects captured by Densus 88, two were apprehended in Cilacap, Central Java at midday on Friday.
Information obtained through those arrests led to the arrests of two other suspects in Tasikmalaya, West Java, later on Friday.

On Saturday, Densus 88 took three others into custody Mojokerto, East Java, along with an eighth suspect in Gresik, East Java, and a ninth one in Sukoharjo, Central Java.
Police on Monday identified the suspects by their initials but not their full names.
The nine detainees are ex-members of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate, National Police Chief Badrodin Haiti told a separate news conference at another location in Jakarta on Monday. JI carried out the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.
"They are former Jemaah Islamiyah and have links to the IS group. Next week, we will process or release them," BeritaSatu, an Indonesian news outlet, quoted Badrodin as saying.
While making the arrests, Densus 88 seized bomb-making materials and weapons. These included five kilos of urea fertilizer, 18 boxes of paraffin, three kilos of nails, four machetes, four boxes of carbon dioxide cartridges, a nine-volt battery, a notebook with information on making explosives, and a map of Jakarta, according to police.
"Based on our investigation, some of that evidence was to be assembled into explosive materials," Anton said.
Emerging threat
During the past year, Indonesian officials had warned that IS posed a direct threat to the country through its aggressive online recruitment of Muslim youths from Southeast Asia and via Islamic boarding schools.
One of the nine suspects, Asep Urip, taught at a pesantren – one of those boarding schools, according to the Associated Press. Asep had allegedly received funds from Indonesian militants who were signing up with IS in Syria, AP quoted Anton as saying.
Indonesia banned IS in August 2014, and officials have since voiced fears that Indonesian IS recruits returning from combat tours in Syria or Iraq could plot terror attacks on home soil.
According to AP, Anton said that police had "identified 240 people who have returned home out of at least 800 Indonesians who have traveled to the Middle East to join IS."
Intelligence sharing
According to news reports, intelligence reports passed on to Indonesian authorities, including by American and Australian federal law enforcement agencies, led to the arrests of the nine suspects in Indonesia.
On Monday, the topic of the arrests came up during bilateral meetings held simultaneously in Jakarta and Sydney. Australian and Indonesian officials agreed to increase the sharing of intelligence in their counter-terrorist efforts, the two counties announced.
"Australia is always prepared to play its part and in this instance it would appear that the Indonesian police have been very successful in thwarting an attempted terrorist activity, but the details are still being made known to us," Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs Julie Bishop said during a joint news conference in Sydney with her Indonesian counterpart, Retno Marsudi.
"Overall Australia and Indonesia are co-operating extremely closely on the whole issue of countering terrorism and we're playing our part globally, we're certainly playing our part regionally and bilaterally we're working very closely together," Bishop said, according to an official transcript.
On alert
In the wake of the arrests, Jakarta Police moved to tighten security in the capital, as Indonesia's Christian minority prepared to celebrate Christmas in a few days.
"We have put 28,000 personnel on alert to secure Christmas and New Year celebrations," said Muhammad Iqbal, the spokesman for Jakarta Metropolitan Police.
Elsewhere, Jakarta Metropolitan Police took part in a meeting at city hall with Jakarta Gov. Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and police chiefs from the greater Jakarta area to coordinate security around year-end festivities.
Last week, Indonesian authorities announced that they would deploy 150,554 personnel from police, military, and related agencies to safeguard this year's end-of-year holiday season nationwide.
The deployments take place every year and are dubbed Operation Candle.


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BENARNEWS- The Islamic State (IS) is aiming to turn Indonesia into a "provincial caliphate," Australian Attorney-General George Brandis was quoted as saying Tuesday.
The report emerged on the same day Indonesian police said there are likely more than 1,000 IS sympathizers in their country.
"ISIS has ambitions to elevate its presence and level of activity in Indonesia, either directly or through surrogates," Brandis told The Australian newspaper.
"You've heard the expression the 'distant caliphate'? ISIS has a declared intention to establish ­caliphates beyond the Middle East, provincial caliphates in ­effect. It has identified Indonesia as a location of its ambitions."
Based in Solo
Indonesia is on its highest security alert after counterterrorist forces arrested nine men who allegedly conspired to launch attacks targeting government and police officials, New Year's festivities, and members of Indonesia's Shiite minority.
"We are searching for the leaders of this group," which is based in Solo, Central Java, Channel News Asia quoted National Police spokesman Anton Charliyan as saying Tuesday.
"This group has a leadership that is regarded as representative of ISIS in Indonesia," he added, using another acronym for IS.
Officials believed that there were over 1,000 supporters of the so-called Islamic State in Indonesia, Anton went on to say.
For months, Indonesian authorities have warned that Indonesian IS recruits returning from combat in Syria or Iraq could plot terrorist attacks on home soil.
Five of the suspects arrested last week were linked to IS and had been communicating with a Syria-based leader of the jihadist group, according to officials.
All nine were former members of Jemaah Islamiyah, the Southeast Asian branch of al-Qaeda that carried out the 2002 Bali bombings, police said.
Joint efforts
On Monday, Brandis met in Jakarta with his Indonesian law enforcement counterparts to discuss bilateral efforts to counter the terrorist threat and the menace posed by IS.
At the same time, the Australian and Indonesian foreign ministers, who were meeting in Sydney, announced a memorandum of understanding between the two countries, by which the next-door neighbors agreed to share intelligence on terrorist threats.
Intelligence reports provided to Indonesia by Australian Federal Police helped Indonesian police disrupt the year-end terror plot and arrest the nine suspects, officials from both countries said.
Australia is also part of a U.S.-led military coalition going after IS forces in Iraq and Syria.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian Syarif Abdullah Alqadrie has lived in the Belgian capital for 30 years and is the main caretaker of the Great Mosque of Brussels, Belgium's largest mosque and the city's oldest.
It lies in the heart of Brussels within a few blocks of the Schuman Roundabout – named after Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of the European Union, which is headquartered here.
Brussels has grown into a culturally and ethnically diverse city in the 65 years since the Frenchman helped foster postwar European unity and a lasting peace between France and Germany.
Along with the city's growth, the Muslim population has swelled and become part of its fabric, as reflected in the Great Mosque. It occupies a corner of one of Brussels' most famous parks.
The mosque also houses the Islamic Cultural Center of Belgium (ICCB), where the Indonesian, who hails from Pontianak, West Kalimantan, works as one of its administrators.
"The mosque can accommodate 4,000 to 5,000 congregation members. Its attendance is fullest on major Muslim holidays, especially during Ramadhan," Syarif told reporters, including a BenarNews correspondent, during an interview at his office.
"Sometimes we have to accommodate some of them in the park," he said, referring to the surrounding Parc du Cinquantenaire.
Looks like a mosque
According to the ICCB's website, the mosque was established after 1967 when King Baudouin of Belgium gave his Saudi counterpart, King Faisal, a building in the park to house a mosque and an Islamic center.
The Great Mosque of Brussels was inaugurated in 1978.
It lives up to its name, Syarif said, because it stands out from other mosques that now dot Brussels and other Belgian towns.
"Those mosques look more like houses. This is the only one that has the appearance of a mosque."
Syarif (pictured below) is one of 20 employees at the ICCB, and is in charge of the mosque and center's administration, which is funded by the Muslim World League.
Before moving to Brussels, he studied and worked for more than 10 years in Saudi Arabia.
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Islam spreads local roots
According to Syarif, the Belgian government officially recognizes Islam as a religion and subsidizes imams and 1,200 instructors who are certified to teach about the religion at public schools nationwide.
Imams certified by the government must be accredited by the ICCB, he said.
Islam is one of Belgium's fastest-growing religions.
According to the Washington-based Pew Research Center, by the year 2030 Belgium will have the second largest Muslim population in Western Europe next to France, and will represent 10.2 percent of Belgium's population.
In 2010, the Muslim population in Belgium stood around 638,000, or 6 percent of the overall population, Pew estimates show.
In the Brussels area alone, Muslims now represent around a quarter of its population, according to various sources.
Not allowed here
The mosque is a peaceful place and is known for espousing moderate Islam. But last month's Islamic State-claimed attacks in Paris that killed 130 people disturbed the calm that resonates within the mosque's walls, Syarif acknowledged.
Residents of Brussels were especially perturbed when word came out that it was the hometown of two Muslim brothers of Moroccan heritage, who were implicated in the coordinated terrorist strike in the French capital.
"The Muslim community here regrets what happened ... because it tarnishes the image of Islam," Syarif said, adding that he couldn't recall whether the brothers had ever set foot inside the Great Mosque.
The brothers, Salah Abdeslam and Ibrahim Abdeslam, who blew himself up in a suicide attack in Paris, hailed from Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, a commune in Brussels with a large concentration of Muslims.
On Nov. 26, 13 days after the Paris attacks, news reports broke about a possible anthrax threat that was mailed to the Great Mosque.
Belgium authorities found 10 envelopes that contained white powder, but they determined it was flour.
Molenbeek has a high unemployment rate. According to the Brussels Institute for Statistics and Analysis, in 2013 the jobless rate in Molenbeek was 28.6 percent among men and 33.1 percent among women.
Syarif acknowledged that radical imams of Syrian origin, who preach at mosques in Molenbeek, had influenced some of the unemployed and uneducated youths.
"We don't allow such imams to give sermons here," he said.
"Through sermons and Friday sermons, we called on the young Muslims here not to be influenced by the radical movement," Syarif added.
Calls for unity
Since the Nov. 13 attacks, other leaders of Belgium's Muslim community have spread a similarly positive message.
Before Friday prayers a week afterward, the imam at another large mosque in Brussels, read out a statement from the Molenbeek-based Islamic Mutual Aid League. It called for social unity amid fears and tension caused by the attacks.
"We need to work together to open spaces for dialogue and self-reflection in order to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening again," Mustafa Kastit, the imam at the Al Khalil Mosque in Molenbeek, said as he read the statement.
Separately, Mohammed Tojgani, president of the League of Imams in Belgium, reaffirmed its commitment to upholding mutual respect and social cohesion across the country.
"We appeal to our citizens, regardless of their faith or philosophy, to exercise the utmost vigilance and to condemn these acts without stigmatizing or complicating it to a particular community," Tojgani said in a statement.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian officials on Tuesday called off their search for people missing from the sinking of a ferry near Sulawesi on Dec. 19, even though a dozen were still unaccounted for, according to news reports.
Authorities listed the death toll at 78. The number includes the 12 who were still missing and presumed dead, and 66 recovered bodies.
The boat sank 22.5 km (24 miles) off the coast of Wajo district in South Sulawesi, after it reportedly encountered rough conditions at sea and sent out a distress signal.
Forty people survived the sinking of the fiberglass boat New Marina, which carried 118 passengers and crew members as it crossed the bay from Kolaka, in Southeast Sulawesi province to Siwa, in South Sulawesi province.
"We have not found anyone today and there has been no sign we will find anyone else, so the operation has been officially called off," search and rescue agency chief Bambang Soelistyo told Agence-France Presse.
The agency has asked fishermen and sailors to notify authorities if they find any more people, he said.
Shortly after the boat sank, a local fisherman rescued four people who were lost at sea, including a boy.
Fisherman Amiruddin told reporters that he heard a woman crying for help at around 2 a.m. on Dec. 19 while he was fishing on Bone Bay.
"I went to where the voice came from and I saw a woman laying on her back in her safety float with a little boy on the top of her. I directly helped them and took them to my boat," Amiruddin said.
The disaster was at least the third maritime accident reported since mid-November in or near Indonesian waters.
Two days earlier, six Philippine crew members of a Danish cargo ship were declared missing after it collided with a chemical tanker about 13 km (8 miles) off Batam island in western Indonesia.
On Nov. 16, more than 100 passengers were evacuated safely or rescued from the ship Wihan Sejahtera in Lamong Bay, in Surabaya.
The death toll from the Dec. 19 accident eclipsed the number of fatalities reported in early September, when a boat bound from Malaysia to Aceh province sank off the Malaysian coast. Sixty-four people died in that accident.


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BENARNEWS- Nurdin bin Ismail Amat (alias Din Minimi), the most wanted militant in Aceh, on Tuesday surrendered to Indonesian authorities, putting down his weapons along with 120 of his men.
The decision by Din and his group to surrender followed negotiations with Indonesian authorities, National Intelligence Agency (BIN) chief Sutiyoso told reporters.
Din, a former member of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), an Acehnese separatist group that fought Indonesia for 30 years until a decade ago, had been leading his band of fighters in armed opposition to the region's government.
Din told BenarNews earlier this year that his group was fighting corruption embodied by Aceh's government, which is led by former GAM rebels.
The group of militants decided  to "go down the mountain" after two months of talks borkered by Juha Christensen, a Finn who had played a role in the 2005 Helsinki accord that ended the three-decade conflict between Indonesia and GAM rebels, Sutiyoso said.
Some 25,000 people – mostly civilians – were killed in the conflict in Indonesia's westernmost province.
"I used the soft approach, as ordered by the president," Sutiyoso told reporters told a press conference on Tuesday in Lhokseumawe, Aceh, referring to President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
"For two months, I had communicated intensely by phone with Din Minimi," Sutiyoso said.
Juha told BenarNews that he had met with Din Minimi two weeks ago at a secret location in  a remote area in East Aceh district.
"This is part of the reintegration processes of former GAM members according the Helsinki agreement, and I work at the request of the government," Christensen said.
Following Tuesday's surrender, dozens of weapons, grenades and other munitions were handed over to authorities, and Minimi's band of men posed for a group photo with Sutiyoso.
Din told Sutiyoso that three of his members had left the group and he would not be responsible for them.
Din has requested amnesty for the 120 members who joined him and for 30 members who have been apprehended by the police. Sutiyoso told the Jakarta Post that Jokowi and other central government leaders had agreed to the group's request for amnesty.
The group also asked Jakarta to help Acehnese widows and orphans, as well as former GAM combatants, lead more prosperous lives.
'They feel abandoned'
Sutiyoso described the request as reasonable and rational.
"Din Minimi also asked for the Corruption Eradication Commission to come down to Aceh. This means a criticism that there is something wrong with the local budget. We will prove whether his criticism is true," Sutiyoso said.
The intelligence chief stated that Din's group did not want to be independent from Indonesia.
"He is not a robber that brings trouble to the community – he had never done it," Sutiyoso said. "I believe the group is disappointed. They are not satisfied with the GAM elite in government. They feel abandoned."
Aceh Gov. Zaini Abdullah and Deputy Gov. Muzakir Manaf are formers GAM combatants.
The  Regional Police in Aceh previously blamed Din Minimi and his group for several criminal acts, including robbery and kidnapping.
Branded as criminals
The group also had been accused of masterminding the kidnapping and killing of two military intelligence officers in March, but Sutiyoso stated that Din Minimi and his group were not involved.
In April, BenarNews interviewed Din via telephone from a hideout in Aceh.
He acknowledged then that that his band of men had committed crimes in East Aceh, including the abduction of a Sottish oil worker in 2013.
But he denied that they were behind the execution-style killings of two Indonesian army intelligence officials in North Aceh in late March 2015.
"We have no business with the TNI," Din told BenarNews, using the acronym for the Indonesian military. "Our opponents are the government of Aceh."


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia's Financial Transaction and Analysis Center (PPATK) claims it has tracked about 5 billion rupiah (U.S. $365,000) in money sent to Indonesia from sources in Australia for use by terrorists.
The center joined forces with its counterpart in neighboring Australia, the Australian Transaction Reports and Analysis Center (AUSTRAC) to uncover the illicit flow of cash destined for terrorist cells in Indonesia, according to Agus Santoso, deputy director of the PPATK, the Indonesian anti-money laundering agency.
"Through our cooperation, we found a link of the flow of funds between suspected terrorist networks in Indonesia and Australia," Agus told BenarNews on Wednesday.
Some of the funds were collected from Australian citizens who were not aware that their donations would be used to support terrorists, he said.
PPATK chairman Muhammad Yusuf said Australian donors were told that the funds would go toward a foundation or to aid an individual starting a business.
"From their perspective, they are providing humanitarian assistance, not funding terrorist activities," Yusuf said.
PPTAK also reported that it had frozen 26 bank accounts valued at more than 2 billion rupiahs (about U.S. $152,000) in accordance with U.N. Security Council resolutions against terrorism that require all member states to freeze assets related with al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Because of these efforts, the 36-member Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) in June removed Indonesia from its blacklist of countries that did not adhere to the implementation of U.N. resolutions along with its own recommendations.
"What PPATK is doing is following the money flows and the results of our analysis aid Densus 88 as it tracks suspected terrorists," Agus said, referring to Indonesia's elite police counter-terrorist unit.
According to Agus, terrorist networks operate businesses ranging from chemical stores, herbal medicine shops, car showrooms to bookstores.
"The funds generated from the businesses may not necessarily directly be used to support terrorist-related activities but, in tracking several layers, we can see that the funds are allegedly used to support terrorism," he said.
Generally, terrorist groups use the money to buy weapons and explosives, conduct training and pay for living expenses of widows and families of slain terrorists, Agus added.
Need to be careful
Jakarta-based terrorism expert Rakyan Adibrata, however, said Indonesia should be careful that it did not freeze accounts established to provide humanitarian assistance in conflict zones such as in Syria or Iraq.
"Some humanitarian groups have to spend time and make contact with radical groups or insurgents because they conduct humanitarian operations in the area of where radical groups exist," Rakyan said. "But if it is clearly related to terrorism, such accounts deserve to be frozen," he said.
High terrorist threat
The revelation of the alleged financial pipeline for terrorists came nine days after Indonesia and Australia announced a joint agreement to share intelligence in combatting terrorism.
Information from Australian federal police also helped Indonesian authorities recently arrest nine suspects, including some with alleged ties to the Islamic State (IS) extremist group. According to Indonesian police, the suspects were plotting year-end terrorist attacks in Indonesia.
The nation has since been put on a high state of alert.
In 2015, police prevented nine terror plots and arrested 74 people linked to terrorist activities, said National Police Chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti.
In his year-end report issued on Tuesday, Badrodin said that cases against 65 of those in custody were on-going, but nine suspects were released because of lack of evidence.
Since 2000, police have tracked down about 1,000 suspected terrorists, he said. Of that total, 299 offenders have been sentenced, three were executed, 12 people killed themselves in suicide bombings, and 104 were killed during the raids.
Because of the continued funding to support alleged terrorist activities, police expect such threats to remain high in 2016.


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BENARNEWS-  Indonesia has reportedly sought investigative help from China following the recent arrest of a Uyghur man with a suicide-bomb vest, but a Uyghur rights group has cautioned Jakarta to be careful in cooperating with Beijing on such cases.
The arrest was one of 13 in various parts of Java in the last two weeks of 2015, with police claiming they had disrupted a major plot backed by an Islamic State (IS) leader in Syria to attack public figures and places of worship in Indonesia.
"We are cooperating with China and investigating evidence such as ATM cards and cellphones," Saud Usman Nasution, director of Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), told Reuters in an interview Wednesday.
He added that an Indonesian team had gone to China to interview members of the man's family, but they did not confirm they were related to him.
Groomed
The man was arrested on Dec. 23 in Bekasi, West Java, a city on the eastern outskirts of Jakarta, based on information obtained from an Indonesian national arrested in the same city earlier in the day.
The Indonesian man, identified as Arif Hidayatullah, was reportedly arrested on his way to work at an automotive company. He allegedly possessed a list of IS supporters in Indonesia and a photocopy of a book about explosives, according to Tribunnews.
Later in the day, a Uyghur man identified as Ali was arrested at a boarding house with a false Indonesian identity card. Traces of explosives were found in his room, Tribunnews quoted police as saying.
"This Ali is allegedly a Uyghur who was studying Indonesian. He was being groomed as a suicide bomber," National Police chief Badrodin Haiti told BeritaSatu in December, shortly after the arrest.
The Uyghurs are a Muslim minority within China, and mostly live in the western Xinjiang region. Uyghurs also are spread across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan,Uzbekistan and Turkey.
During the last couple of years, Uyghurs have been leaving China in droves to escape persecution and repression by authorities who consider them separatists and terrorists and have cracked down on their religion and culture.
Chinese authorities have blamed an upsurge of violence in Xinjiang since 2012 on "terrorists" and insurgents seeking to establish an independent state.
A spokesman for the World Uyghur Congress, a diaspora organization based in the United States, urged authorities in Jakarta to be "very careful" when cooperating with China on anti-terrorism cases related to Uyghurs.
"We oppose any action taken by Jakarta that justifies China's widespread and systematic human rights violations in Xinjiang," Dilshat Rishit said.
Uyghurs with Santoso
In 2015, a Jakarta court convicted four Uyghur men of attempting to join an Indonesian terrorist group. They were arrested in September 2014 in Central Sulawesi, not far from the jungles where Santoso, Indonesia's most wanted militant, is believed to be hiding.
Santoso has sworn allegiance to IS and has welcomed foreigners to join his Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group. The MIT currently has 32 members, including two Uyghurs and three women, security officials say.
But the Uyghur man arrested in Bekasi was part of an IS affiliate based in Solo, Central Java, according to the Reuters report on Wednesday.
Officials declined to comment on reports that two other Uyghurs from the same group were on the run, Reuters said.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia has refused to issue a media visa to a French journalist who produced a documentary about alleged state-sponsored human rights abuses in the easternmost Papuan provinces, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Tuesday.
Cyril Payen, a Bangkok-based reporter for France 24 television, received notice of the denial from Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs late last week. The notice did not give a reason, according to CPJ, a New York-based NGO devoted to press freedom worldwide.
Payen spent a week reporting in Papua in July, two months after President Joko Widodo announced that his government would allow foreign journalists unrestricted access to the region. It is home to a low-level secessionist movement and one of the world's largest gold and copper mines.
Payen's film, "The Forgotten War in Papua," was broadcast by France 24 on Oct. 18, CPJ said in a statement.
"Indonesia's move to deny France 24 reporter Cyril Payen a journalistic visa smacks of retaliation for his critical reporting," said Shawn W. Crispin, CPJ's senior representative in Southeast Asia.
"President Widodo should make good on his previous pledge to improve access to Indonesia for foreign journalists by reversing this arbitrary and ill-conceived decision."
While campaigning for the presidency, Jokowi, as he is known, vowed to bring peace and prosperity to Papua and West Papua, which are among the poorest and least developed provinces of Indonesia. The area, comprising one fifth of the nation's total land area, officially became part of Indonesia in 1969.
Jokowi announced the opening to foreign reporters during a visit to the region in May, when he also freed five political prisoners. The gestures were aimed at "building mutual trust" and "removing the stigma of conflict from Papua," he said at the time.
Victor Mambor, head of the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI) of Papua, welcomed the move, saying that access to Papua for foreign reporters had been very limited for more than four decades.
"For a long time, Papuan voices have not been heard by the world," Victor told BenarNews in May.
"The blockade on the foreign media has minimized justice for human rights violations."
Indonesia has enjoyed robust press freedom in almost all other parts of the country since the fall of President Suharto in 1998.
Editor's note: Victor Mambor has been a stringer for BenarNews since September 2015.


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BENARNEWS- Radical Indonesian cleric Abu Bakar Bashir made a rare public appearance at a Central Java Court Tuesday as his legal team argued that his prison sentence for funding a militant training camp be shortened.
Lawyers presented what they said was new evidence that Bashir had raised money for Palestinian victims of violence that had been misused.
"That [receipt] is one of the new pieces of evidence," Achmad Michdan, a member of Bashir's legal team, told BenarNews by phone.
The hearing unfolded days after Achmad announced that Bashir had dropped his support for the Islamic State (IS) group.
Bashir – once considered the spiritual head of al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate, Jemaah Islamiyah – reportedly pledged allegiance to IS in mid-2014 from Nusakambangan, the prison island where he is serving his sentence.
'God's order'
Bashir was sentenced to 15 years in prison in 2011 after being convicted of raising some Rp. 350 million (U.S. $25,215 today) for a militant training camp in Aceh.
A defense witness had also testified in 2011 that Bashir's group, Jamaah Ansharut Tauhid (JAT), had donated Rp. 300 million to the medical charity MER-C to build a hospital in Gaza, but lawyers did not produce a receipt at the time.
At Tuesday's hearing, Bashir claimed again that he did not know about the military training in the Jantho Mountains of Aceh in 2010, but learned about it on television news.
But the frail 77-year-old appeared to undermine his case by defending the training camp in a "fiery tirade" in the courtroom, according to Agence France-Presse.
"The physical and weapons' training in Aceh were aimed at defending Islam and Muslims in Indonesia and overseas, and were an obligation Muslims must fulfil because it is God's order," AFP quoted Bashir as saying.
Hundreds of white-clad supporters crowded the venue, at times shouting "God is Great" according to AFP.
Tuesday's hearing took place under tight security with a combined police and military force of 1,164 on hand, Cilacap regional police spokesman Adriyanto told BenarNews.
Afterward, Bashir was whisked back to Nusakambangan under armed guard.
The sentence review process, expected to take three or four sessions, is scheduled to resume Jan. 26.
'Who created IS?'
Bashir withdrew his support for IS after deciding information he was receiving about it could not be trusted, Achmad Michdan told BenarNews on Saturday.
Achmad claimed that he himself had investigated the matter during a trip to Turkey and learned that the armed group was created by western countries.
"All this time, in prison, what kind of information could he get about IS? I myself went to Turkey, studied about IS, met with scholars and activists in Syria and Turkey; even they have questions about IS. I told Bashir about this," Achmad told BenarNews Saturday.
"If someone asks about IS, he will answer back, who created IS?" he said of Bashir.
Sri Yunanto, a staff expert at Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), questioned whether Bashir had really withdrawn support for IS, since the assertion came from his lawyer.
"That statement needs to come from Bashir himself," Yunanto told BenarNews.
Even if true, it is not likely to change minds in Indonesia, because most IS sympathizers are not Bashir followers, he said.
In a discussion about IS in Jakarta in December, BNPT head Saud Usman Nasution gave two different figures for the number of Indonesians who have gone to Syria and Iraq. Intelligence data says 800, whereas police have a tally of 384, he said.
"More than 169 have already come home from Turkey. Some did not enter Syria, some did and finally returned to Indonesia because they found conditions there not as good as the propaganda says," Saud said.
Fifty-three Indonesians have died in the Middle East, among them four suicide bombers, he said.
"We don't know for sure how many people have gone there," he admitted.
Officials have not given a figure for how many IS supporters or members have been arrested in the sprawling, decentralized country.


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BENARNEWS- The leader of a militant group in Aceh says he wants to live in peace as a commoner now that he and about 120 of his men have surrendered.
But Nurdin bin Ismail Amat, who is widely known by the alias Din Minimi, may not be immune from prosecution by local authorities for alleged crimes committed by his group, although the Indonesian central government had guaranteed amnesties for him and his men in exchange for their surrender on Dec. 29.
"I just want a quiet life. I also want to help people who need my help," Din told BenarNews in a phone interview Wednesday.
"But I don't think I will go into politics because I did not finish school," he said.
The interview occurred a day after Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo reiterated his government's promises to Minimi and his group for turning themselves in and putting down their weapons.
"We will grant him an amnesty for sure," Jokowi said during a Tuesday cabinet meeting on human rights, Indonesian news website Detik.com reported.
Din, however,  is expected to go through the legal process and potentially face criminal charges, despite Jokowi's guarantee of amnesty. Aceh police said they would file charges against Din and his men for their alleged roles in more than a dozen crimes committed in the province.
Din and his men surrendered to the chief of National Intelligence Agency (BIN), Sutiyoso, after years of leading his band of fighters in opposition to the provincial government. He also handed over 15 firearms and ammunition to Sutiyoso.
At the time of his surrender, Din requested amnesty for members of his group as well as all former Free Aceh Movement (GAM) combatant. He also demanded that the provincial administration guarantee the welfare of orphans, widows of GAM veterans and victims of Aceh's three-decade-long conflict.
GAM fought a separatist insurgency against the Indonesian government, which ended with the signing of a peace accord in Helsinki in 2005. In addition, Din demanded that the Corruption Eradication Commission investigate cases of alleged corruption in Aceh's government.
Last year, Din told BenarNews in a separate interview that his group was fighting corruption in the provincial government, which is led by ex-GAM rebels.
'Maybe I'll do farming'
Now back home with his family in East Aceh regency, Din has received many visitors ranging from commoners to politicians, including former Aceh Gov. Irwandi Yusuf.
Din said that he would like to get back to work, although he is not sure how he would support his mother, wife and three children.
"Maybe I'll do farming or drive heavy equipment as I did before," he said, adding that his members worked as fishermen or farmers.
Aceh Provincial Police Chief  Husein Hamidi, however, has vowed to bring Din and his group to justice, even though they have surrendered.
On Dec. 31, the police chief blamed Din and his group for 14 criminal cases in the North Aceh and East Aceh districts  in the last three years.
"We will process him and his members  legally  in accordance with the applicable laws," the chief said, but without saying when the process might begin.
Din denied any role in the crimes including kidnapping, extortion, arson, as well as the killing of two military intelligence officers in North Aceh on March 24, 2015.
The former militant leader asked if he should sue the police for having shot and killed his men.
"I already handed over all weapons. What else do they expect?  If they want to arrest me, please. But I kept my promise to Sutiyoso," Din said.
In December, Sutiyoso told BenarNews that  he would ensure the safety of Din and his men after their surrender.
Calls for Din's prosecution
Two of the people behind the push to bring charges against Din and his followers are the director of Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Banda Aceh, Mustiqal Syahputra, and the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence Aceh, Hendra Saputra.
"Giving amnesty to a person who allegedly is behind  14 criminal offenses is tendentious and really should be re-examined," Mustiqal said.
He said group members had been tried and sentenced to five years in prison. Their trials revealed that they had committed the crimes on Din's orders.
"Din Minimi should be prosecuted because he is still on the Aceh police's list of wanted people for his alleged crimes," Hendra told BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- A man jockeying for leadership of the Malay-language wing of the Islamic State is the likely mastermind of Thursday's attack in Jakarta, police and analysts say.
They are connecting the dots between that individual, Bahrun Naim, and one of the gunmen caught on camera during the hours-long attack near the Sarinah Department Store that left seven dead and 24 injured.
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"Many knew him in prison as a follower of Aman Abdurrahman, and as someone who participated in a weapons training in Aceh," security expert Nasir Abas said of the gunman, during an interview with BenarNews.
Aman Abdurrahman is serving a nine-year sentence at Nusakambangan prison in Central Java for his role supporting that training, which took place in 2010.
It was there that he formed a close bond with Bahrun Naim, according to Nasir, who believes Bahrun is the leader and funder of the cell that mounted the attack.
The Islamic State group (IS) claimed the attack in a statement Thursday, marking the first time that the Middle East-based extremist group has been linked to a terrorist strike in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Competing for leadership
Jakarta police chief Tito Karnavian named IS and Bahrun Naim as the force behind the attack during a press conference at the Presidential Palace.
"The perpetrator network is linked with ISIS, which is based in Raqqa," Tito said, using another acronym for IS and referring to its stronghold in a Syrian city.
Under its leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi, IS had expanded its strategy beyond Iraq and Syria.
"They have opened branches all over the world to carry out operations like those in France, Turkey and Southeast Asia," he said.
"In Southeast Asia, some figures are competing for leadership. Actions in Indonesia including Sarinah are managed by a figure named Bahrun Naim."
Who is Bahrun Naim?
Muhammad Bahrun Naim Anggih Tamtomo was arrested by Indonesian police in November 2010, ahead of a visit to Indonesian U.S. President Barack Obama, for possessing illegal ammunition, according to Ansyaad Mbai, the former head of the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT).
"He was sentenced to 2.5 years in jail. But in June 2012, he was already free," Ansyaad told BenarNews.
Bahrun is an IT expert and skilled hacker who can also use hacking to steal money, Ansyaad said.
He is thought to have gone to Syria sometime in 2014.
"I agree with the Jakarta police chief, who said he [Bahrun] wants to be the leader of the ISIS group in Southeast Asia," Ansyaad said.
'The groom truly has to die'
Bahrun is associated with Katibah Nusantara Lil Daulah Islamiyah (Malay Archipelago Unit of the Islamic State), which was formed by Indonesian and Malaysian militants fighting for IS in Syria, according to a 2014 report by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, a Jakarta-based think-tank.
The unit could spread the reach of IS in Southeast Asia, and it could also become a fighting force in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, the report warned.
Bahrun is known to have been in contact with an IS cell in Bekasi, near Jakarta, and another in Solo, Central Java, where security forces foiled a terror plot in late December, according to Budi Gunawan, deputy chief of the national police.
"We anticipated the act planned for New Year's Eve, and were able to capture them" before they could carry it out, Budi said Thursday during a visit to the scene of the attack in Jakarta.
Bahrun's name also emerged during investigations after police arrested an ethnic Uyghur man in Bekasi in late December. Police believe the man was being groomed as a suicide bomber.
Thursday's attack was similar to ones that have taken place overseas, such as the multiple attacks on civilian targets in Paris on Nov. 13 that killed 130, according to Wawan Purwanto, a staff expert at the BNPT.
People groomed for suicide bombing are very hard to deter from that goal, he noted.
"The 'groom' truly has to die, it is a point of pride," Wawan said, using the Indonesian term for suicide bombers derived from the idea that such "martyrs" are rewarded with brides in heaven.
An earlier version incorrectly identified Bahrun Naim  as Bahrum Naim.



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BENARNEWS- Indonesians rallied in Jakarta Friday to reject extremist violence as police launched a nationwide hunt for suspects in a suicide attack in the city the day before.
"We love peace and condemn terrorism. In fact, we are ready to be at the forefront to fight terrorists," Ferdi Irwandi, secretary general of the Organization of Ahlulbayt for Social Support and Education, an NGO representing Indonesia's minority Shiite community, told BenarNews as he took part in a vigil with scores of other people.
They gathered near the site of the Starbucks café and Sarinah department store where the attack happened on Thursday, leaving seven dead, including two civilians and five suspected militants. The Islamic State (IS) extremist group claimed it was behind the attack, its first terrorist strike in Indonesia.
A Canadian and an Indonesian were killed in the attack, which injured 24 others.
People from all backgrounds and walks of life took part in Friday's vigil. Many held up red signs that bore the Twitter hashtag "#WEARENOTAFRAID."
"We are sad that there were victims, but we must not be afraid because, if we are afraid, it means the terror was successful," Indonesia Solidarity party Chairperson Isyana Bagoes Oka told BenarNews.
On Friday afternoon, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo visited the site of the attack in a central Jakarta business district, not far from the Presidential Palace.
"The most important thing, thank God, is that yesterday, in a very short time – three to four hours – the situation was brought under control," the Associated Press quoted the president as saying.
Arrests
Meanwhile, police announced the arrests of 11 people in post-attack operations mounted in Central and West Java Thursday night and Friday.
According to police, nine of the 11 in custody are suspected militants, but officials did not give information about the remaining two suspects.
Three of the 11 suspects were connected to the suicide attacks, which combined bombings and shootings, police said.
According to Inspector General Anton Charliyan, the National Police spokesman, these three suspects were associated with Bahrun Naim, an alleged IS leader based in Syria who is suspected of masterminding the attack in the Indonesian capital.
"It's clear that the [Jakarta attackers] didn't set this up themselves. For this, we are searching for the networks and who was involved in this action," Reuters quoted Anton as saying.
According to National Police chief Badrodin Haiti, Thursday's plot likely involved a broader terrorist network.
"The planners, financiers, and supporters that provide (explosive) materials, assemble the bombs, facilitate accommodations and vehicles, etc. ... of course this is the work of a team that could be big or small," he said, according to Reuters.
"This obviously was not conducted by five men, this takes teamwork."
All of the activities involving the group that carried out the attack were funded by IS through Bahrun Naim, AP quoted Badrodin as saying Friday.
Bahrun is a leader of Katibah Nusantara, an IS unit based in Syria that is exclusively made up of Malay-speaking fighters from Southeast Asia.
According to Ansyaad Mbai, the former chief of Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), Indonesian authorities foiled 15 planned terrorist plots, including by arresting at least nine suspects in December who were taking part in an IS-linked plot to carry out a "concert" of attacks in Indonesia during the Christmas and New Year's season.
"Luckily, police did a good job to disrupt the plan," Ansyaad told BenarNews.
"But still, yesterday's incident should be a wake-up call for us."
Suspect killed
Elsewhere on Friday, Indonesian police said they killed a suspected militant in Central Sulawesi province who was believed to be a supporter of IS but he was not part of the Jakarta attack.
The province on Sulawesi island is a stronghold for Indonesia's most wanted militant, Santoso. His Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group has pledged its allegiance to IS.
On Jan. 9, Indonesian security forces ended their latest yearly operation to hunt down Santoso.
He evaded capture, but the forces caught seven alleged MIT members and killed seven other suspects in shootouts, bringing the number of people left in Santoso's band down to 32 members, police in Central Sulawesi told BenarNews last week.
Keisyah Aprilia contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- A blog under the name Bahrun Naim, the alleged mastermind of the Jan. 14 attack in Jakarta, was accessible for several hours Tuesday, as Indonesian leaders discussed revising the nation's antiterrorism laws to give law enforcement greater ability to pre-empt such attacks.
The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology on Saturday shut down some 11 radical websites and several social media accounts where users were expressing support for Thursday's attack, which left four civilians and four attackers dead.
But the Bahrun Naim blog reappeared under the same name, with a different address.
In a post called "Advice for Viewers" it claimed that a group called Junud Daulah Islam (JDI) had targeted police and foreigners to retaliate against Densus 88, the elite police anti-terrorism unit, for allegedly killing "hundreds" of Muslims.
It further claimed that JDI had issued a "warning" through Santoso, a shadowy figure widely considered Indonesia's most dangerous militant, thought to be hiding in the forests of Central Sulawesi with a band of 30 followers calling themselves the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT).
In November, a video appeared online with Santoso's still image and a voice similar to his threatening to attack the headquarters of the Jakarta police and fly the flag of the Islamic State (IS) from the Presidential Palace in Jakarta.
Monitoring
Meanwhile, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo met with legislative and executive officials to review the National Antiterrorism Law of 2003 with an eye toward improving national safety.
Cabinet Secretary Pramono Agung said the government has detected suspicious activities since November.
"But there are parts of the Antiterrorism Law which do not allow the government to take action," he said. For example, he said, the law blocks investigators from using materials believed to have been used to train bomb-makers as evidence.
The leaders also discussed changing the law to allow law enforcement to crack down on people who have returned to Indonesia after training with militant groups in foreign countries.
In December, the head of Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) gave two different figures for the number of Indonesians who have gone to Syria and Iraq. Intelligence data says 800, whereas police have a tally of 384, he said.
"More than 169 have already come home," Saud Usman Nasution said.
Fifty-three Indonesians have died in the Middle East, among them four suicide bombers, he said.
National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti said he supports changing the law because police can observe those returning from Syria or Iraq but cannot to arrest them unless they were to commit terrorist acts, according to the Jakarta Post.
He told Reuters that the country was bracing for the return of more experienced fighters who may be capable of carrying out more sophisticated attacks.
The Jan. 14 assault included two pistols and 11 homemade bombs. The perpetrators were neutralized in less than 30 minutes, CCTV footage reveals.
Al Chaidar, a terrorism analyst from the University of Malikussaleh Aceh, stressed that the revision should be focused on dealing with acts that lead to terrorism.
"And most importantly, the government should issue a law or regulation defining and listing terrorist or banned organizations. Through the list, the public can find out which organizations are banned. So people understand that by joining the organization, they could be arrested," he said.
Trained in prison
Analysts were also concerned that at least three of the people involved in the attack had recently served time in prison – and been further radicalized there.
Alleged mastermind Bahrun was convicted of owning illegal weapons and ammunition in 2010 and was released from prison in 2011. Police believe he has joined the IS in Raqqa, Syria.
Afif, alias Sunakim, who has been identified as the man photographed pointing a gun a people during the attack, had been sentenced to seven years in prison and was freed last August.
In prison, he prayed and cooked together with Aman Abdurrahman, a man convicted in a 2004 bombing, according to Taufik Andrie, the research director of the Institute for International Peacebuilding, a Jakarta NGO.
"Once he was out of prison, he was even more militant, right?" Taufik commented.
Ansyaad Mbai, the former chief of the National Counter Terrorism Agency (BNPT), urged the government to form special prisons for inmates linked to terrorism cases so they are not as likely to train other prisoners.
He said there were at least a dozen convicts released at the end of 2015 who should be monitored for potential terrorism links.
Taufik said some former convicts immediately disappear, move with their families and do not report to the authorities, violating terms of their parole.
Zahara Tiba and Arie Firdaus contributed to this report


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia's militant deradicalization programs remain weak with no political agreement on which types of extremism are considered dangerous, a senior conflict analyst from Jakarta said Tuesday.
Founder and director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) in Jakarta Sidney Jones said such program in the world's most populous Muslim nation are "not well-targeted" and "have not emerged from a thorough study of where and how radicalization takes place."
"The key to developing more effective programs is to ground them in more in-depth research about how and where individuals are radicalized in the first place," she told the International Conference on Deradicalization and Countering Violent Extremism 2016 in Kuala Lumpur.
Ministers, senior officials and counterterrorism experts from 19 countries gathered in Malaysia's capital for the two-day talks aimed at improving strategies to counter Islamic State (IS) militants and other violent extremist groups.
High alert
Jones said that while research does not guarantee success, "programs that are not based on concrete data are almost guaranteed to fail." Interviews and analysis of biographical data are key, she argued.
"Indonesia's National Anti-Terrorism Agency and government agencies have access to more confidential data. Especially in the age of Islamic State (IS), that information must be the foundation on which prevention strategies are built," she said.
The agency – known by its Indonesian acronym BNPT – was established in 2010 after suicide bombings at two major Jakarta hotels and the discovery of a plot against then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, all in 2009.
Indonesia also suffered the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, targeting tourist areas in the south of that island and killing some 230 people combined, while injuring hundreds more. Those attacks were carried out by al-Qaeda's Southeast Asian affiliate Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).
Since then, Indonesia's elite counterterrorism police force Densus 88 has been credited with reining in the terrorist threat but also accused of excessive use of force and arresting innocent people.
The BNPT, meanwhile, has engaged former radicals and guest clerics from the Middle East to speak in prisons and schools.
The country remains on high alert after an attack combining bombings and shootings in Jakarta two weeks ago left four civilians and four attackers dead. IS claimed the attack, its first in Southeast Asia.
At least two of the attackers were former prison inmates who had served their sentence and been released.
A major headache
Jones said the emergence of IS has helped Indonesia to focus on deradicalization programs with an emphasis on counter-narratives on social media. But she admitted only a handful of new ideas have been put forward.
She stressed that extensive research should be conducted on Indonesian IS militants who were stopped or deported while heading to Syria.
"This group now totals almost 200 people, more than half of them women and children under the age of 15," she said.
"Unlike the wild figures of 600 or 800 Indonesian fighters that one sometimes sees, a better estimate is 250 to 300. That still could constitute a major headache for Indonesia, if and when they return home, although most have no intention of doing so," she said.
Anywhere, any time
Speaking about Singapore's Religious Rehabilitation Group, a community-government partnership to fight terrorism, Dr. Mohamed Ali from Nanyang Technological University (NTU) said the country's leaders "understood quite early" the threat of terrorism.
"As these threat groups were active outside Singapore and were not within the reach of Singapore. The government had to incorporate the participation of the Muslim community to deal with the threat," the NTU inter-religious studies expert said.
He added that IS operatives have changed strategy and now "new recruits don't need to head into Syria or Iraq."
"Today, they don't need to take that journey. They are here and now being brainwashed to make imminent attacks anywhere at any time," he told BenarNews.
Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia's Chief of Ideological Security under the Ministry of Interior, Dr. Abdulrahman Al Hadlaq, said the Kingdom had designed several specialized deradicalization programs to staunch terrorism activities with experts leading at the forefront.
"I think we have 200 professors working part-time in this program. It's a huge program and it is a very effective program," Abdulrahman told BenarNews.
He added the program is conducted by rehabilitation centers such as the Muhammad bin Nayef Center of Counseling and Care on the outskirts of the capital, Riyadh.


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BENARNEWS- The Indonesian government has yet to block an Islamic State video that was posted online five months ago and features a citizen suspected of being one of the top IS figures from Indonesia.
The man in the video, Bahrumsyah (also known as Abu Muhammad al-Indonesi), has appeared in other pro-IS videos, including one disseminated online in August 2014 that prompted a governmental ban on the Middle Eastern-based extremist group.
As of Wednesday the latest video was still accessible via Google Drive and, according to Indonesian news outlets, appeared online this past August.
Earlier this week, Indonesia's Ministry of Information and Communications Technology said it had blocked 24 websites disseminating content deemed as promoting radicalism, but not the latest Bahrumsyah video because it was awaiting instructions from police.
"We will block the video based on the police request. So far we don't have such a request," ministry spokesman Ismail Cawidu told BenarNews on Wednesday.
The 10-minute, 32-second video was produced and released by al-Hayat, IS's media wing.
The video shows a clean-shaven Bahrumsyah (pictured) wearing combat fatigues as he speaks to the camera. It also features images of him giving orders to an all-male crowd and dozens taking part in military training at a camp somewhere in Syria, according to experts.
In earlier videos, Bahrumsyah wore a mustache and goatee. Last year, he appeared in an IS propaganda video that showed young boys – including under 10 years old – undergoing military training and indoctrination at a camp.
Who is Bahrumsyah?
The Syria-based Bahrumsyah is one of three Indonesians who have taken on leadership roles within IS, police said.
The other two are Abu Jandal (alias Salim Mubarok Attamimi) and Bahrun Naim, who, according to police, masterminded an IS-claimed attack in Jakarta that killed eight people, including the four men suspected of carrying it out.
All three men are associated with Katibah Nusantara, an IS combat unit whose ranks are made up exclusively of fighters recruited from across the Malay Archipelago.
Bahrumsyah's name came to light in August 2014, when he appeared in the first IS video.
In the Indonesian-language video, he wore a black turban and outfit and called on his fellow Indonesians to join IS. Five months earlier, he had been seen taking part in a rally at the Hotel Indonesia roundabout in downtown Jakarta, where a number of groups pledged their allegiance to IS.
Born in Bogor, West Java, on July 25, 1984, Bahrumsyah studied at the Syarief Hidayatullah Islamic State University in Ciputat, on Jakarta's southern outskirts. Campus records show he spent three semesters there, but he dropped out in 2004.
Bahrumsyah is now one of main recruiters for Indonesians who hope to join IS, and he also serves as a point of contact between IS in Raqqah, Syria, and the group's followers in Indonesia, said Ridlwan Habib, a researcher at the Indonesia Intelligence Institute.
According to information provided by police, 384 Indonesians have gone to Syria or Iraq to join IS, whereas information released by intelligence sources puts that number at more than 800.
Money man?
Last week, National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti told journalists that Bahrumsyah was involved last year in plots by radicals to launch terrorist attacks on Indonesian soil.
According to information obtained through the interrogation of a suspect arrested after the Jan. 14 attack, Bahrsumsyah in 2015 wired Rp. 1 billion (U.S. $72,200) to this suspect, who was supposed to use the cash to buy weapons in the Philippines.
Police said they are trying to determine whether any of the money sent by Bahrumsyah was used to finance the attacks. Earlier, police said that Bahrun Naim had financed the operation through money wired to Indonesia from Syria via Western Union.
Competition with Abu Jandal
According to Ridlwan, Bahrumsyah is involved in a power struggle among the leadership of Katibah Nusantara, particularly with Abu Jandal.
Both men have clashed, he said, over their respective interpretations of the meaning of "good."
"What is good for them is evil for us," Ridlwan told BenarNews.
IS's top brass demoted Abu Jandal after he appeared without their approval in a video in 2014, in which he challenged and threatened the heads of the Indonesian Armed Forces, national police and Densus 88, the police's elite counter-terrorist unit, Ridlwan said.
In that video, Jandal threatened to "slaughter ... one by one" those who opposed the idea of instituting Sharia law in Indonesia nationwide.
A man who hails from Lamongan, East Java, and is known as Siswanto occupies Abu Jandal's role, Ridlwan said.
Siswanto was a student of Aman Abdurrahman, a militant who was jailed in 2004 for assembling explosives.


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BENARNEWS- In the wake of this month's deadly terrorist attack in Jakarta, the Indonesian national police have launched a pair of mobile phone applications designed to dissuade young people from becoming radicalized.
The apps "Stop Terrorism" and "Defeat the Terrorists" were developed by a member of their own generation, Adjie Pratama, a 23-year-old home-school mathematics and physics teacher.
Pratama told BenarNews that he got the idea after monitoring the reactions of internet users in Indonesia following the Jan. 14 attack claimed by the Islamic State in central Jakarta, which left eight people dead, including the four alleged attackers.
"I myself was surprised to see reactions as the attacks occurred. What I first saw was the trending topic of #KamiTidakTakut (#WeAreNotAfraid), and then saw reports of a satay street vendor who was still selling even though the situation was dangerous," Pratama said.
"And then came the trending topic of #PolisiGanteng (#HandsomePolice), referring to a handsome, stylish police officer deployed to the terror site. These made me think that Indonesian people can also be so relaxed," Pratama said.
That inspired him to create a mobile phone app that he called "Bantai Teroris" ("Slaughter the terrorists"), and which he urged his colleagues to play.
Police participate in development
From there, a friend introduced Pratama to Inspector General Anton Charliyan, the national police spokesman.
Charliyan invited Pratama to work with the police in developing the app into a game that could be played on mobile phones, but asked him to change the name because it was too violent. The police eventually approved another name: "Defeat the Terrorists."
Pratama then developed "Stop Terrorism," an app aimed at preventing terrorism. It allows people to report suspicious activity to police. They can also use it to discuss their concerns in an online chat room supervised by police officers. The app allows people to file complaints directly to police.
"We created this application so that young people will be against terrorism and can access police via their smart phone," Charliyan told BenarNews.
The police will now work with Pratama to develop apps designed to counter other problems on their beat, including drugs.
Slings and stones
Pratama's "Defeat the Terrorists" features seven levels.
Players use slingshots and stones to beat the terrorists, the game's designer explained.
"For every terrorist hit by a stone or slingshot, a user will get points. But users must also be vigilant, because the armed terrorists can shoot them too," Pratama said.
Throughout each game, participants receive messages such as "Terrorism is not Jihad," and "Terrorism has no religion." Each message ends with the hash tag "#WeAreNotAfraid."
Pratama said both apps can be downloaded for free from Google Play Store and Amazon.
Mixed reviews
Many users have given the game positive reviews, according to Enda Nasution, a social media observer.
But others did not like the game because it simply is about shooting and does not resolve the problem of terrorism, Nasution said.
Nonetheless, the phone app is a good way to alert young people to the threat of radicalism, he said.
"The game may be used to counteract the spread of radical ideologies, however the methods to counteract it need to be clear," Nasution told BenarNews. "Make a good game, based on the right scientific methods, do not rush."
Pratama agreed, pointing out that both apps were made within five days of his meeting with the police.
"In terms of function, terrorism does not happen every day. If there is information to be conveyed, is better to do it by mobile phone," Nasution added.


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BENARNEWS- Authorities have been unable to deradicalize more than two dozen people imprisoned on terrorism-related convictions, although participation in a deradicalization program is compulsory for such inmates, according to the head of Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT).
"There are still 25 people who cannot change their mindset," Saud Usman Nasution said during a panel discussion on deradicalization in Jakarta earlier this week.
Additionally, Indonesian officials cannot track nearly 200 former inmates who have been released after serving sentences on terror-related charges. Police had lost contact with one of the perpetrators who died in an attack in Jakarta on Jan. 14, which the Islamic State claimed. Eight people, including four of the alleged assailants, were killed in the attack in downtown Jakarta.
The National Awakening Party (PKB), a moderate Islamic and a conservative political party whose many members are from one of Indonesia's largest and most influential Islamic organizations, Nadhlatul Ulama, organized the discussion.
Asked to reveal the names of the 25 prisoners, Saud reluctantly answered that he could remember one name, Aman Abdurahman (alias Oman Rachman and Abu Sulaiman).
Aman was convicted for his role in establishing a paramilitary training camp for militants in Jalin, Aceh, in 2010. He also has been linked to the Jan. 14 attacks.
"We cannot change Aman's way of thinking," Saud said.
Aman is locked up in Nusakambangan prison following his nine-year sentence by the West Jakarta District Court in 2010, and he is to be freed around August 2019.
After more than five years in prison, Aman refuses to join the BNPT's deradicalization program, officials with the agency said. At the end of his sentence, he could be released without withdrawing his alleged support for the Islamic State (IS).
"He rejects all programs we arrange for him," said Wawan Hari Purwanto of BNPT.  "He has rejected a Muslim clerk from Egypt [whom] we invited especially for him."
Aman is housed in an isolation room at Nusakambangan, according to Wawan.
"But we keep trying to deradicalize him by visiting him periodically and communicating with him. This is hard, but we keep trying," Wawan said.
Many prisoners skip deradicalization training
Government officials conceded that they have released prisoners who maintained radical views.
Among those was Sunakim (alias Afif), who was identified as a man in a baseball cap pointing a handgun at people during the Jakarta attack. A follower of Aman, Sunakim was convicted of terrorism charges in 2011 and released in mid-2015.
"We could not monitor him because he was always on the move," Saud said.
According to BNPT data, police cannot locate at least 198 of 584 former prisoners convicted of terror-related charges.
"Together with the police, we continue to look for them," Saud said.
JI member works with BNPT
Nasir Abbas, a former member of al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) who works to help BNPT, urged the agency to continue with the deradicalization  program.
Participating in the public discussion, Nasir said it took time to finally accept and be open to non-radical ideology.
"During the time of my deradicalization program, I did not want to chat or look at the investigator's eyes. Only after constantly being given an explanation, I understood and began to open to the process," he said.
"Deradicalization is like communication and communication is important. Twelve years in jail without communication is useless."
Mahasin, the director general of the Islamic Society of the Ministry of Religious Affairs, agreed that the deradicalization process can be time consuming.
"The discussion may come in a relaxed way. There is no need to directly discuss the issue of religion," he said. "If we start directly with religion, they would immediately not want to listen."
Education key to countering radicalization
In addition to the deradicalization program, Mahasin highlighted the importance of guidance and education to those who have not been exposed to radical ideology.
"We teach Islam that is moderate, pluralistic, and polite," Mahasin said.
An'im Falahuddin Mahrus, a parliament member from the National Awakening Party, suggested that teaching tolerance had to start as soon as possible.
"It should be taught from an early age. Family is the key," he said.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia can expect more attacks by Islamic State supporters on its soil because of a rivalry among top Indonesians in the group and a split within an IS unit in Syria made up of Southeast Asian fighters, a Jakarta think-tank says in a new report.
"More terrorist attacks in Indonesia are likely as local ISIS leaders compete at home and abroad to establish their supremacy," says the report published this week by the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC), referring to IS by another acronym.
The report also divulges fresh information about last month's deadly attack in Jakarta – the first one in Indonesia claimed by IS – saying it was plotted and executed by a home-based group called, and not orchestrated from abroad as reported earlier.
"The Jakarta attack is now known to have been locally organized – not directed from Syria as originally thought – but it almost instantly resulted in instructions from a Syria-based leader to his followers to do one better," IPAC Director Sidney Jones said in a statement that accompanied the report's release.
"Leaders of Indonesia's tiny pro-ISIS camp are competing to prove their fighting credentials," she added.
Eight people, including four men alleged to have targeted a Starbucks café and the surrounding area in downtown Jakarta with bombs and guns, died in the attack on Jan. 14.
Power play
Titled "Disunity Among Indonesian ISIS Supporters and the Risk of More Violence," the 13-page report examines how three IS figures from Indonesia who are based in Syria have been vying for influence amongst Indonesian supporters of the group: Bahrumsyah (also known as Abu Ibrahim and Abu Muhammad al-Indonesi), Abu Jandal (also known as Salim Mubarok Attamimi) and Bahrun Naim.
According to IPAC, a rivalry between Bahrumsyah and Abu Jandal has led to the latter breaking away from Katibah Nusantara, an IS unit commanded by Bahrumsyah and made up exclusively of Malay-speaking fighters from Southeast Asia. Abu Jandal has established a faction called Katibah Masyarriq.
The report says Bahrun Naim has tried to remain neutral in the rivalry between the two but has also been "trying on his own to encourage and fund attacks in Indonesia and elsewhere in Southeast Asia."
Contrary to what Indonesian police said in the aftermath of the Jakarta attack, when they named Bahrun Naim as its mastermind, there is no evidence to date to support that theory, IPAC reports.
It says the attack was carried out by a local group, the Partisans of the Caliphate, or Jamaah Anshar Khilafah (JAK), and whose ideological leader is imprisoned Indonesian Muslim cleric Aman Abdurrahman.
According to the report, Aman fell out with Bahrumsyah, the top IS commander in Syria, but Aman and Abu Jandal are close.
Regional implications
Bahrumsyah, Abu Jandal, and Bahrun Naim "are competing with each other to encourage their contacts in Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to undertake attacks against enemies of the self-declared caliphate. In some cases, they are also providing funds," the IPAC report says.
"At the same time, some groups in Indonesia are acting on their own, without direction from Syria, to carry out jihad operations (amaliyat) as a way of demonstrating their commitment to ISIS."
The report goes on to say that "the competition will produce an increase in terrorist plots that regional law enforcement agencies will be hard-pressed to contain."
The three Indonesians control different pipelines for recruiting their countrymen to join the IS cause in the Middle East, the reports suggests.
But a crackdown by Turkish authorities on suspected IS sympathizers and their families who are trying to cross into Syria will keep many IS recruits out of the war zone and confined to Indonesia, IPAC also predicts in the study.
"The fact that it has become much more difficult to cross into Syria from Turkey means that there will be more potential fighters willing to take on the war at home than in 2014 or 2015," IPAC says, noting that more than 215 Indonesians had been deported by Turkey as of December 2015.


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BENARNEWS- A Jakarta court Tuesday convicted, fined and sentenced to prison seven Indonesians accused of supporting the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.
The seven defendants received different sentences for charges related to terrorism, but these fell short of jail terms that prosecutors were seeking.
The sentences marked the first Indonesian convictions of suspected local supporters of the Middle Eastern-based group since an IS-claimed terrorist attack in Jakarta killed eight people on Jan. 14, including four of the alleged assailants.
Among the defendants, Tuah Febriwansyah (alias Muhammad Fachry), was sentenced to five years in prison and a fine of Rp 5 million (U.S. $367). The six others were sentenced to between three and four years in prison, following trials that were heavily guarded by police.
Fachry's sentence was  much lighter than the penalty that the prosectution had sought. The prosecutor wanted the alleged owner of the radical site Al-Mustaqbal.net to be sentenced to eight years in prison and fined of Rp 50 million (U.S. $3,680).
"Thank God, I accept the decision of the judge," Fachry said.
A panel of judges comprised of Muhammad Arifin, Syahlan and Ahmad Fauzi said their ruling was fair and based on the law.
Fachry was found guilty of joining a Quran study group that pledged allegiance to the IS. The study group was led by Bahrumsyah, an alleged Indonesian IS leader who is believed to be in Syria.
"The judges ruled that Tuah uploaded and distributed IS propaganda from the Internet on the Al-Mustaqbal website," Chief Justice Syahlan ruled. "People became aware about IS and this brings impacts, whether it makes people afraid or moved to follow IS."
Lower sentence
Two of the other defendants, Aprimul Hendri (alias Mulbin Arifin), and Koswara (alias Abu Ahmad), were given lighter sentences.
Aprimul was sentenced to three years in prison and fined of Rp 50 million. The prosecutor had sought a five-year term for him.
Koswara was sentenced to four years in prison and also fined Rp 50 million. In his case, the prosecutor had sought six years in prison.
The judges ruled that Aprimul and Koswara were involved in a conspiracy to facilitate the departure of Indonesians to Syria.
"The defendant (Koswara) had received money through the BCA (Bank Central Asia) account and then used it to dispatch people to Syria," the judges ruled.
Koswara and Aprimul said they would not appeal the verdict.
Bound by UN Charter
The four other defendants, Ahmad Junaedi (alias Abu Salman), Sungkar Ridwan (alias Abu Bilal and Iwan aka Ewok, Abdul Hakim Munabari (alias Abu Imad), and Helmi Muhammad Alamudi, received similar sentences.
Junaidi was sentenced to three years in prison, less than the five-year term sought by the prosecution. Ridwan was sentenced to four years in prison, less than the six years sought by the prosecutors, and Abdul Hakim was sentenced to three years, less than the five sought by the prosecution.
Helmi was sentenced to 3.5 years in prison and fined Rp 100 million (U.S. $7,360). The prosecution had wanted five years and the same fine.
All four accepted their sentences.
But their attorney, Asludin Hatjani, challenged the validity of the verdicts for the four defendants.
"Our opinion is that the act actually occurred outside Indonesia, which was in Syria," said Asludin. "Moreover, one of the defendants, Junaedi was actually deceived when leaving for Syria. He was promised a job as a teacher."
The judges ignored Asludin's defense.  They instead cited expert witness Romli Atmasasmita, a criminal law expert from the University of Padjadjaran.
"Although there is no treaty on extradition between Indonesia and Syria, citizens who commit a crime in Syria can still be prosecuted according to Indonesia law," the judges ruled, relying on the expert's testimony.
"Both countries adopted the resolution of the United Nations Security Council of Sept. 24, 2014."

The resolution, among other things, stressed that efforts to counter the IS must be in accordance with the U.N. Charter.


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BENARNEWS- Listening to him play jazz on a piano, few would think that Josiah Alexander Sila is just 12 years old and a nominee for two Grammy awards Monday night.
"I will always work and I will give my best for music," Josiah, who is better known as Joey Alexander, told BenarNews in a message just days before his chance to shine.
Besides the nominations, the award committee announced that he would perform in front of the stars of the musical world during the ceremony at the Staples Center in Los Angeles.
Joey may be young, but his talent rival veteran pianists. And jazz lovers in the United States, where this Indonesian musician lives, are so impressed that he has a chance at music history.
Self-taught
Born and raised in Bali, an island in Indonesia more renown for traditional Balinese dance than modern music, Joey grew up listening to his father's jazz album collection. His love of music started to show when his parents, Denny and Fara Urbach Sila, brought home a small keyboard to channel the energy of their active 6-year-old.
What Joey did with his keyboard surprised his parents. Only by listening to his father's album, young Joey learned to play Thelonious Monk's "Well, You Needn't."
After watching his son play, Denny Sila brought in a music instructor to give Joey lessons.
They did not last long because the teacher focused on classical piano. Joey wanted more freedom and channeled his musical interest through jazz. He decided to teach himself, accompanied by his father.
But he has not always found his choice of musical genre easy.
"Jazz is a hard music," Joey told the New York Times, "and you have to really work hard and also have fun performing; that's the most important thing."
Rising star
The Silas played an important role in helping Joey reach his potential. But unlike the usual stereotypical stage parents, Joey's case is different. He is pushing his parents.
The Silas decided to leave their tourism business in Bali, moving to Jakarta to allow their son to learn and play directly with the country's best jazz musicians.
At the age of 8, he dedicated his childhood to jazz after meeting Herbie Hancock, who was visiting Jakarta and said he believed in Joey's ability.
While grateful for Joey, the Silas do not put extra pressure on their only child in terms of a future career – instead they are going with the flow.
In 2014, with help from some American jazz musicians, including the director of Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis, Joey and his family moved to New York.
Asked by BenarNews whether they had specific expectations regarding Joey's achievements at this young age, Mrs. Sila said that as a parent, she "would like to protect his development as a child and to raise him fearing God."
Establishing his name in the jazz world, Joey won the Grand Prix at age 9 at the 2013 Master-Jam Fest, an all-ages jazz competition in Ukraine.
He has performed at prestigious events, including the Jazz at Lincoln Center 2014 Gala, the 2015 Montreal International Jazz Festival and the 2015 Newport Jazz Festival.
He also played for many famous people, including former U.S. President Bill Clinton. Last October, Joey played the popular song of his country, Bengawan Solo, in front of Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo during his state visit to the U.S.
A humble prodigy
His superior style and talent – not only for a pre-teen, but for jazz musicians of any age – leads many to call Joey a genius and child prodigy.
The New York Times carried a page-one story about him headlined "Joey Alexander, an 11-Year-Old Jazz Sensation, Who Hardly Clears the Piano's Sightlines." Last month, CBS's "60 Minutes"profiled him in a segment narrated by Anderson Cooper that was titled "Little Jazz Man."
Despite his growing fame, Joey doesn't seem too comfortable with the publicity.
On Twitter, he responded to an Indonesian TV channel that was about to run his profile, "Hey there! Thanks Om [Indonesian for uncle or a friendly, colloquial way to greet an adult man]. Hope they did not call me a prodigy."

He considers Monk, Herbie Hancock, Harry Connick Jr. and Bill Evans among his musical inspirations, but the humble kid added that his true inspiration came from above.
"For me, it's a gift from God that I can do that," newyork.cbslocal.com quoted him as saying.
Joey is also a down-to-earth, normal kid. Outside of his busy schedule, stage performances, two to three hours of daily piano practice, and homeschooling, he is just like other kids of his age.
"Playing toys. I play sports, like I play a little bit of tennis, swimming ... like a normal kid, I watch movies," he told VOA.
Genius, prodigy, or not, Joey is awe-inspiring. On Monday he could make history as the youngest soloist to receive a Grammy.
His first album, "My Favorite Things," received a nomination for Best Jazz Instrumental Album, competing with senior jazz players, including Terence Blanchard, Jimmy Greene and Robert Glasper.
He arranged all the songs on that album. In addition, he is nominated for Best Improvised Jazz Solo. He considers his chance to perform at the event another honor.
When BenarNews asked to convey how he felt as the recipient of two Grammy nominations, Joey replied: "I thank God and all those who have always supported me."


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BENARNEWS-  The United States and ASEAN nations Tuesday closed a two-day summit with sweeping commitments to boost maritime security and economic activity in the region and limit the flow of Southeast Asian militants to Islamic State-controlled territory in the Middle East.
A joint statement issued at the end of the gathering at the picture-perfect Sunnylands estate in California appeared to refer to the dispute over the South China Sea, amid fears that China is aiming to control key resources and maritime routes in the region.
The U.S. and 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) affirmed a commitment to "ensuring maritime security and safety, including the rights of freedom of navigation and overflight and other lawful uses of the seas, and unimpeded lawful maritime commerce," as well as "to address common challenges in the maritime domain."
Asked earlier in the day if the summit would deliver a joint statement on the South China Sea, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry replied affirmatively, although the statement did not mention China or the sea by name.
"We discussed the need for tangible steps in the South China Sea to lower tensions including a halt to further reclamation, new construction and militarization of disputed areas," U.S. President Barack Obama told reporters following the summit, according to Reuters.
China and four ASEAN states – Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam – have overlapping claims in the South China Sea that the U.S. wants resolved peacefully.
Countering extremism
The "Sunnylands Declaration" pledged that the region would "lead on global issues such as terrorism and violent extremism" as well as in combatting trafficking in people, drugs, wildlife and timber, and illegal fishing practices.
The leaders agreed to make better use of Interpol data to prevent the flow of fighters across borders, Reuters reported.
Hundreds of Indonesians and Malaysians have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight with the Islamic State. According to recent reports, IS leaders have officially recognized pledges of allegiance from militant groups in the southern Philippines.
Opening the summit Monday, Obama cited the deadly attack in Indonesia's capital last month by IS-linked militants, saying "the scourge of terrorism demands that we stay vigilant, share more information and work cooperatively to protect our people."
At Obama's request, Indonesia President Joko Widodo was asked to lead a discussion on countering radicalism and terrorism at the gathering.
Indonesia was chosen to the lead the discussion because other countries were impressed with the government's policy in dealing with the problem, Foreign Minister Retno L.P. Marsudi said.
"The approaches taken by the President of Indonesia to handle the terror attack on 14 January is really appreciated by the international [community]," Retno said in a statement issued by the Indonesian cabinet on Sunday.
Call for civilian rule in Thailand
The summit also touted the importance of "dynamic, open and competitive economies" and inclusive economic growth, as well as the strengthening of democracy, in a region of yawning economic disparities and uneven political freedoms.
"We continue to encourage a return to civilian rule in Thailand," Obama told a press conference after the summit, according to AFP.
Obama also said the gathering agreed to work toward reforms that would enable all ASEAN members to join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a vast free-trade pact between the U.S., Brunei, Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and seven non-ASEAN nations.
The U.S. said it would open the offices in Jakarta, Bangkok and Singapore specifically aimed at increasing US economic engagement in the region, according to AFP.
ASEAN is the fourth-largest trading partner of the United States, which is competing with China for economic influence in the region.
'A long way to go'
The summit in Rancho Mirage, Calif., was the first ever held in the United States between the 10 Southeast Asian leaders and an American president since the two sides forged diplomatic relations four decades ago.
Obama, who is in the last year of his presidency, spoke about how ASEAN was at the heart of his strategy to bring about a strategic "re-balancing" – the so-called Asia pivot – in American foreign policy.
Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha were among the other the ASEAN leaders at the summit.
It unfolded amid criticism from rights activists that the U.S. was hosting Asian leaders with dubious records on human rights and democracy.
Vietnam and Laos are one-party communist states while Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, who has been in power for more than three decades, dominates all centers of power in his country.
Thailand is run by a junta that seized power two years ago. In neighboring Malaysia, Najib's government has been beleaguered with a financial scandal connected with the 1MDB state investment fund, whose advisory board he chairs.
Hundreds of protesters from rights and other groups had gathered outside the summit to highlight rights abuses in the region and oppose the TPP.
U.S. National Security Adviser Susan Rice addressed the issue in briefing the press at Sunnylands before the summit opened on Monday.
"We're quite aware that some of our ASEAN partners have a long way to go on human rights," Rice told reporters, according to a transcript released by the White House.
"But the United States will continue, as we do everywhere, to stand up for the rights of all people," she said, adding that President Obama during the summit would "stress the importance of good governance, the rule of law, human rights, and a vibrant civil society, and capable, accountable institutions."


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BENARNEWS- Thirty-five suspects appeared in an East Java court Thursday to face charges related to the killing of a farmer and an attack on another farmer, both of whom were anti-sand mining activists.
Two of the suspects are local officials who allegedly masterminded the separate attacks. The pair could face the death penalty, if convicted.
The hearing into the murder of Salim Kancil, 52, and Tosan, 51, who survived a separate attack on the same day last September, took place at Surabaya District Court.
The farmers were activists who led protests against an illegal sand-mining operation in Lumajang, a regency about 150 kilometers (93 miles) southeast of Surabaya. Both were from the village of Selok Awar-Awar in Pasirian, a sub-district of Lumanjang.
The alleged masterminds of the attacks, Hariyono and Madasir (alias Abdul Holek), face multiple counts. Hariyono was village leader of Selok Awar-Awar  and Madasir was chairman of the Community Institution of the Village Forest.
Prosecutor M. Naimullah charged both men with formulating a murder plan, causing violence resulting in death, aggravated assault, and taking someone's life. Hariyono also faces charges related to illegal mining and money laundering, which carry a penalty of 20 years in prison.
Another 33 defendants appeared in two different courtrooms. Charges against them vary, depending on their alleged roles, but carry maximum penalties of five to seven years.
Electrocuted, beaten, stabbed
During the indictment Naimullah alleged that the defendants committed torture and premeditated murder, and these acts were carefully planned by Hariyono and Madasir because Salim wanted to protest sand mining by Hariyono.
Madasir threatened to kill Salim and Tosan if the sand mining operation were shut down, the prosecutor alleged.
Salim and Tosan reported the threats to the Lumajang and Pasirian police.
Not long afterward, at least a dozen men attacked Tosan at his home on Sept. 26, running him over with a motorcycle. Thinking he was dead, the attackers left him in the middle of the road.
They then went to Salim's house, where he was beaten. Then they took him to the village hall, where he was allegedly electrocuted, beaten again and stabbed to death.
Salim's body was left on the street, face down with his hands tied behind his back, according to the indictment.
"They (the defendants) have undergone detention since three months ago. It is still an indictment," said Ade Erwiyanto, Haryono's defense attorney, adding, "There will be direct evidence by calling witnesses."
Another prosecutor, Dodi Emil Gazali told the court that Hariyono began mining the sand in Watu Pecak, an area on the coast, without a permit on the pretext of developing coastal tourism.
Haryono sold the sand for Rp 270,000 (U.S. $200) per truck, and sold an average of 150 truckloads per day, which equaled more than Rp 40 million (U.S. $30,000), Dodi said.
Chief Judge Jihad Alkharuddin adjourned the trial till next Thursday, when witness testimony is set to begin.
Some of the witnesses, who fear for their lives, have been placed into an Indonesian witness and victim protection program.
'No response'
As the hearing took place, outside the courthouse dozens of activists from a conservation group staged a demonstration highlighting the detrimental effects of illegal sand mining in Lumajang (pictured below).
Salim had voiced concerns about the process to local authorities and lawmakers but to no avail, said Ony Mahardika, director of the East Java Forum for the Environment (WALHI) group.
An investigation by WALHI determined that hundreds of people were involved in the illegal mining, he said.
"Salim also sent a letter to the parliament leaders and to the district head of Lumajang to oppose the mining. But there was no response. He was instead intimidated and threatened with violence," Ony said.



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BENARNEWS- A group of 15 Karen rebels from Myanmar spent a week in Indonesia's westernmost province of Aceh to learn how the region maintains peace after gaining it a decade ago.
During their stay, from Feb. 14 – 20, the group met with academics, government officials, former members of the separatist Free Aceh Movement (GAM), activists and journalists.
"The success of the peace in Aceh is a role model for our region, with a few adjustments, of course. For example, the establishment of a local political party is really interesting and maybe can be discussed" back home, delegation leader Isaac Po told BenarNews.
The 15 represented three subgroups – Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army (KNU/KNLA), Democratic Karen Benevolent Army (DKBA), and Karen National Union/Karen National Liberation Army Peace Council (KNU/KNLA PC).
In one session during the week, journalists shared their experience in reporting on gun battles between the Indonesian army and GAM separatists.
"We really had to be independent in reporting the conflict, because if we took a side, the other would be angry," said Tarmilin Usman, chairman of Aceh Chapter of the Indonesian Journalists Association (PWI).
"Back then, local media always campaigned about the need to end the armed conflict through dialogue. Even a small opportunity for dialogue between the warring parties, we would turn into major news," he said.
Ceasefire
The government of Myanmar signed a ceasefire agreement with eight groups of rebels, including the Karen, in October 2015, following more than six decades of conflict.
The ceasefire has been going smoothly so far.
"We adhere to the ceasefire agreement and there has been no more armed contact with the military," Po said. "It is true what some people we met here in Aceh said, bringing a conflict to an end requires negotiation and dialog."
He added that his group wants to learn how Acehnese achieved lasting peace. They also want to learn about the challenges in maintaining peace.
"We are also interested to know how former GAM separatists transformed from armed freedom fighters to high-level government officials," Po said.
"We realize we still have a long way to go to achieve peace in our land, but we're optimistic we can do the same as what Acehnese have done under one condition – no party betray the other," he added.
Po said the ceasefire in Myanmar occurred as the nation's politics changed from a military junta that ruled for more than 50 years to a democratic government. Unlike in Aceh, no mediator was involved in the peace talks.
The National League of Democracy landslide victory led by Aung San Suu Kyi in last year's election created an opportunity for Myanmar to create a democratic leadership. Military influence remains strong, however, as the constitution requires one-fourth of the parliament be filled by members of the military.
Indonesia experienced similar authoritarianism during the New Order era, when former President Suharto ruled with an iron fist for 32 years.
Rebels Met Local Top Leader
The delegations' visit was facilitated by the Cambodia-based Center for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPCS) and the International Center for Aceh and Indian Ocean Studies (ICAIOS). ICAIOS is a joint research center of three universities – Syiah Kuala University, Ar-Raniry Islamic State University and Malikussaleh University of Lhokseumawe.
ICAOS said the Karen delegation met with Malik Mahmud Al Haythar, known as Wali Nanggroe Aceh, on Tuesday. The Wali Nanggroe is a traditional leader seen as a unifying figure in Aceh.
Malik shared his story about the separatist struggle and peace talks with the Indonesian government that began in 1999. Several agreements made during the process fell through because the parties did not trust one another.
"It was not that smooth, the challenges were there. So it was only in 2005 that peace was realized through negotiations in Helsinki, Finland. The most important thing is mutual trust between the two sides," he said.
The former GAM prime minister advised the Myanmar group to follow in the footsteps of GAM by sticking to dialogue and negotiations.
"We, the GAM rebels, used to think there was no other way but war. But in reality, there is hope in another kind of solution, through dialogue, that brings lasting peace and benefits to both sides," he said.
"If you hold talks, you will get support not only from local society, but also the international community. Peace is not just for the Karen rebels, but also for your people," Malik said.
The delegation also met officials of the Aceh Party and Aceh National Party, two local political parties formed by former GAM separatists, to learn how former armed rebels switched to politics.
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BENARNEWS- A Jakarta court on Tuesday convicted and sentenced two men for supporting the Islamic State extremist group, bringing to 11 the number of IS supporters serving prison sentences in Indonesia.
The convictions of Muhammad Basri and Robby Risa Putra by the West Jakarta Distict Court came as parliament was deliberating a bill that would toughen the country's anti-terrorism law.
The bill's provisions include extending initial detention periods of terrorism suspects from 7 to 30 days without charges.
Basri, who headed an Islamic boarding school in Makassar, South Sulawesi, was sentenced to 8 years in prison and fined Rp 90 million (U.S. $6,713) for financing terrorist-related activities and conspiring as the mastermind of a failed plot to assassinate the governor of South Sulawesi province.
Robby was sentenced to three years and six months for directly assisting half a dozen Indonesians in their travel plans to join IS in Syria, by hosting them at his house in West Jakarta, arranging their plane tickets, and driving them to the airport.
Relaxed and smiling
Prosecutors had sought 12 years for Basri and five for Robby.
According to Chief Judge Zahri, there was enough evidence in Basri's case to prove that he had helped "dispatch Indonesian citizens to Syria in three different batches throughout 2014," including one of his children and a nephew.
Basri, 53, appeared relaxed and smiling after the verdict and sentence were read out.
But his attorney, Ahid Syahroni, said the punishment was too heavy.
"Because he actually did not ask the two [other conspirators] to kill [South Sulawesi Gov.] Sahrul Yasin Limpo. He only said, 'do it if you can, if not, don't,'" Ahid told BenarNews.
Asludin Hatjani, a lawyer representing Robby, said his client would not appeal the ruling.
Earlier this month, the West Jakarta District Court sentenced seven other IS sympathizers to terms ranging from three to five years, lighter punishments than prosecutors had  sought.
Post-attack crackdown
The government of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo drafted the anti-terror bill in the wake of last month's IS-claimed attack in downtown Jakarta that left eight dead, including four alleged assailants.
The government has since launched a crackdown on suspected militants that has yielded around 40 arrests, including of 17 people suspected of links to the Jan. 14 attack.
Included among these numbers are five suspects with alleged ties to IS who were arrested Friday by Densus 88, the Indonesian police's elite anti-terrorrist unit, in Malang, in East Java province. A sixth alleged IS supporter was arrested in the Malang area earlier last week.
According to police, one of the five suspects taken into custody on Friday included Muhammad Romly. He is the founder of a group called the East Java Ansharul Caliphate, which pledged allegiance to IS supreme leader Abu Bakar al-Baghdadi in July 2014.
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Police load suspected militants into a van in Malang, East Java, Feb. 21, 2016. [Heny Rahayu/BenarNews]
Singapore arrests
Meanwhile, Singaporean officials said Tuesday that they had deported four Indonesians arrested two days earlier in the city-state while on their way to join IS in Syria, according to news reports.
One of the four was a 15-year-old boy, reports quoted Indonesian police as saying.
Though his administration has stepped up efforts to go after IS supporters at home, the number of Indonesians who have joined the extremist group in the Middle East is relatively tiny – 329 – in comparison with Indonesia's overall population of 252 million, Jokowi told a summit of U.S. and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders in California last week.
"The lesson that can be learned is that fighting terrorism and reducing foreign terrorist fighters requires political stability, democratic government and freedom from foreign occupation," Jokowi said while leading a Feb. 16 session on countering radicalism and terrorism.
Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata in Jakarta and Heny Rahayu in Malang contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian police said Thursday they were watching out for threats and taking seriously an Australian warning about possible terrorist plots in Indonesia.
"The threat is always there, but we never know when an attack will occur. Therefore, we are always on alert," Inspector Gen. Anton Charliyan, the National Police spokesman, told BenarNews.
Security has been increased and police are on alert as officers continue to hunt down suspected militants, he added.
Earlier in the day, Australia's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) updated its travel advisory for Indonesia, a neighboring country and popular tourist destination among Australians.
"Recent indications suggest that terrorists may be in the advanced stages of preparing attacks in Indonesia," DFAT's latest advisory said.
On Sunday, the Australian government issued a similar warning to its citizens traveling or living in Malaysia.
Thursday's advisory warned Australians to "exercise a high degree of caution" while in Indonesia, including in Bali, "at this time due to the high threat of a terrorist attack."
The warning did not explain how an attack or attacks would be carried out, but officials indicated that they had been carefully planned.
DFAT "continues to receive information that indicates that terrorists may be planning attacks in Indonesia, which could occur anywhere at any time," the advisory added, noting that people should be "particularly vigilant at places of worship and during significant holiday periods."
Intelligence Sharing
Australia issued the warning exactly six weeks after a terrorist attack claimed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group left eight people dead in downtown Jakarta, including four of the suspected assailants.
Since the Jan. 14 attack, Indonesian police have arrested dozens of suspected militants throughout Indonesia, including nearly 20 believed to be linked directly to that plot.
Last Friday, Densus 88, the Indonesian police's elite anti-terrorist unit, arrested five suspected militants in the East Java city of Malang. All five are being held at Jakarta Police Headquarters.
Meanwhile, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Arrmanatha Nasir said that while Australia's travel advisory had changed, its security concern remained at level two.
The Australian system has four levels, starting with 'normal' at level one. Level two calls for citizens to be careful and vigilant.
"The degree of the caution is not increased because of the updated travel advisory," Arrmanatha told reporters at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Jakarta.
"Indonesian security authority is always professional and on alert. Until now we have not received information from the Australian authorities regarding a growing threat," he said.
Indonesian and Australian security forces cooperate closely and are well coordinated, Arrmanatha said.
Australian authorities also share information with Indonesian police.
In December, intelligence provided by the Australian Federal Police and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation helped Indonesian authorities foil domestic terror plots that were supposed to be carried out during the Christmas and New Year's holiday season.
Monitoring continues
To prevent terrorist attacks, Anton said police continued to monitor people who have recently returned to Indonesia or will be leaving to join armed groups abroad. The security forces also monitor those who are suspected of being involved in paramilitary training in the conflict areas in Indonesia or overseas, he said.
Anton added that close cooperation between agencies was important, especially cooperation with prisons. Many terror plots are planned inside prisons by terrorists or other convicts.
"We have limitations in monitoring in prisons," Anton said, adding that monitors also needed cooperation from religious and community leaders to fight the spread of radical ideology.
"Banks also needs to monitor the financial transactions and the flow of funds that support terrorism, Anton said.
"The threat of terrorism is real, therefore we will strengthen Densus 88 with better facilities, update their skills and bring additional new members," he added.
During his recent visit to the United States, where he participated in special summit between the U.S. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said that only about 329 citizens out of a population of 252 million had traveled to Syria to join IS.


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BENARNEWS- Hartoyo, secretary of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) organization OurVoice, cut off the conversation.
He had hung up the phone but was back on the line a few minutes later, explaining that he had he panicked.
"Someone knocked on my door when I was on the phone. I'm so scared," he told BenarNews in an interview.
"I rushed to the door to lock it. I was worried somebody might have been eavesdropping, because I put [the phone] on loud speaker and I spoke quite loud."
Hartoyo's fear conveys a sense of dread commonly expressed by members of Indonesia's LGBT community.
Alhough homosexuality is not outlawed in Indonesia – except in Aceh province, where Sharia law is enforced – and the nation largely practices a moderate brand of Islam, gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender people say they are facing growing discrimination because of their sexuality.
Resistance to the LGBT community is on the rise and even coming from governmental officials.
Muhammad Nasir, the minister of Technology, Research and Higher Education, recently rejected a plan by a study group at the University of Indonesia to host a discussion about LGBT-related issues. He went so far as to suggest that gay people should be banned from campuses, according to reports.
"There are standards of values and morals to uphold. A university is a moral safeguard," reports quoted him as saying in late January.
Since then, the LGBT community has seen itself increasingly marginalized as public opposition to same-sex issues grows.
An Islamic boarding school for transgender students in Yogyakarta was forced to close and the nation's highest Muslim clerical body, the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI), issued a fatwa stating that it is a crime for people to engage in same-sex, bisexual or transgender activities. Last year, the council issued another fatwa saying that people who engaged in "vile" or "deviant" acts should face the death penalty.
Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu added fuel to the latest controversy by suggesting that the LGBT people were a "proxy" threat to national security.
"[LGBT] is dangerous, our enemies are invisible," Tempo magazine quoted Ryamizard as saying on Feb. 23. "They are brainwashed without realizing it, then demanding independence. It's dangerous."
Meanwhile, an anti-gay undercurrent pervades Indonesia, according to a study published by the Pew Research Center in June 2013.
Ninety-three percent of Indonesians who were surveyed by Pew said society should not accept homosexuality, compared with only 3 percent who accepted it.
'It's private': Vice president
Yet activists are fighting back in defense of rights for LGBT people.
Once anti-LGBT sentiment is turned into a prohibition against people, it can be categorized as discrimination, according to Haris Azhar, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS).
"We urge President Joko Widodo to order his ministers to provide human rights protection and security guarantees to the LGBT community in Indonesia," Azhar said, according to Kompas.com.
Widodo has not commented, but Vice President Jusuf Kalla said earlier this month that a person's sexual preference was a private matter that should not be publicized.
"It's a common issue, because it's private. It becomes wrong when it turns out to be a movement to influence others, moreover to legalize same-sex marriage," Kalla said.
Merlyn Sopjan, a transgender activist from Kediri, East Java, said the ongoing campaign aimed to gain recognition for the LGBT community.
Merlyn also expressed hope that discrimination would end and the community would be protected against any possible violence.
"The goal of our activities is not to persuade others to be like us. Our campaign is to introduce the core issues, such as human rights, community empowerment, and raising awareness on the danger of HIV-AIDS. But we are accused of spreading the LGBT propaganda," Merlyn said.
Students 'more progressive than their lecturers'
Since its establishment in 2009, OurVoice's focus has been to educate the LGBT community and the wider public, including university students, through social media and discussions, Hartoyo said.
"We never persuade them to be gay. If they marry a different-sex partner, it's their right. It's their decision, as long as the decision is taken without pressure," he said.
The response among students to OurVoice-organized seminars has been positive, he added.
"Students are more progressive than their lecturers. The generation gap likely tells all. They have learned about the issue from the Internet and they want to learn more. It's unique, so their enthusiasm remains high," he added.
Elsewhere, Susanna Magiyuani, the human resources manager of LGBT organization SuaraKita, said it had been inviting experts and religious leaders to join public talks on the issue.
"I'm straight. I have three children. Every day I interact with my LGBT colleagues in the organization. I know exactly how their life is. If people said LGBT is contagious, a lifestyle or mental disorder, I'll say they have to learn more about LGBT," she told BenarNews.
Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata in Jakarta contributes in this story.


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BENARNEWS- At a Jakarta summit of 57 Muslim nations Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo called on the Islamic world Monday to do more to uphold the cause of statehood for the Palestinian people.
Addressing a special summit on Palestine of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, the president of the world's most populous Muslim nation said OIC's members should collectively live up to the body's founding principle in 1969 of supporting an independent Palestine.
"OIC should be part of the solution, and not part of the problem. If the OIC cannot be part of the solution to Palestine, then OIC becomes irrelevant," Jokowi said in his keynote speech on the summit's second and final day.
"We emphasize [that] as long as the independence of Palestine has not been given to the Palestinians, Indonesia will continue to stand against the Israeli occupation. We, Indonesians, are consistent with that promise," said Jokowi.
The leader of the host country and his administration has tried to increase Indonesia's influence on the stage of world diplomacy since he took office in October 2014.
"The Islamic world needs the support of the United Nations in accordance with the U.N.'s roles and responsibilities," he added. "We again call for the peace process not to be delayed for the independence of Palestine through the 'Two-State Solution.'"
The two-day summit ended with the members of the OIC bloc issuing a Jakarta Declaration that affirmed the member-states' support for Palestinian statehood.
Among other things, the document called "on the international community to support the boycott of products produced in or by illegal Israeli settlements."
The declaration agreed to increase pressure on the U.N.'s Security Council to provide protection to Palestinians and set a deadline for the end of Israeli occupation of Palestinian-claimed territories.
It also highlighted the importance of the unity of Palestine and OIC member states in promoting the role of Islamic countries in helping to resolve the decades-old conflict.
"Although it does not have binding legal force, at least this is a good beginning," Indonesian Mid-East analyst Siti Mutiah Setiawati told BenarNews.
The declaration "can be a reminder, especially to the Arab countries, that the [Palestinian] issue has been neglected for so long as Arab countries are busy warring with each other," she added.
But Smith Alhadar, an analyst at the Indonesian Society for Middle East Studies, expressed doubt that the OIC states could actually unify around the cause.
"OIC members are not unified," Smith told BenarNews.
'Longest occupation'
The meeting in the Indonesian capital drew 605 delegates from 57 OIC member countries, one observer nation as well as the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council: the United States, Russia, China, Britain and France.
Over the two days participants discussed six main issues at the heart of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict – namely borders, refugees, the status of Jerusalem, settlements, security and water.
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas said he appreciated the major role that Indonesia played in making the OIC special summit a reality, along with Jakarta's consistency in supporting the cause of an independent Palestine.
"This is the longest occupation in modern human history. Israel suppressed the Palestinians, jeopardizing the lives of our people. Our historical sites were never in as much danger as they are today, as a result of policies that are very detrimental to the Palestinians," Abbas said.
Jokowi, for his part, backed up his vow to help the Palestinians more by announcing that Indonesia would open a consulate in the city of Ramallah in the near future.
"Indonesia's position could be an encouragement for the Palestinians despite their desperation. It can facilitate access to assistance from the outside world," Reza Widyarsa, a Middle Eastern expert at the University of Indonesia, told BenarNews.
Indonesia welcomes controversial figure
The summit, however, ended on a controversial note.
The U.S. embassy in Jakarta voiced concern Monday about an alleged international war criminal, Sudanese President Omar Hassan Ahmad Al-Bashir, being allowed to travel to Jakarta for the OIC summit.
"President Bashir has been charged by the International Criminal Court (ICC) with war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide, and warrants for his arrest remain outstanding," the American embassy said in a statement posted on its website.
"While the United States is not a party to the Rome Statute, which is the treaty that established the ICC, we strongly support the ICC's efforts to hold accountable those responsible for genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes in Darfur," the statement added.
When asked to respond to this, Indonesian Foreign Ministry spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters that the government had invited all OIC leaders.
"In an event such as this, all will be treated equally," he said. "Indonesia does not have any specific position related to charges against Bashir."


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BENARNEWS- Indonesians awaken Wednesday to a total solar eclipse, a rare occurrence that will take place along an arc cutting across a large section of the archipelagic nation.
In the span of a few minutes, the moon will pass between the sun and the earth, blocking out the sun completely and plunging parts of Indonesia into total darkness.
The eclipse will be visible in 12 of Indonesia's 34 provinces and will stretch from Sumatra to Kalimantan and Maluku, according to Avivah Yamani, an astronomer with the Community of the Southern Sky, an Indonesian association of star-gazers.
"Even though a total solar eclipse happens once in every 18 months, it does not happen in the same place," Avivah, an alumnus from the astronomy department at the Bandung Institute of Technology, told BenarNews.
"It is estimated that the next eclipse like this may happen again in 2042, but [will] be seen from different areas."
According to the Associated Press, the path of the total solar eclipse will measure only 100 to 150 km (62 to 93 miles) wide, but will sweep across a section of Indonesia joining the Indian and Pacific oceans.
A partial solar eclipse will be visible in other parts of the country, from Aceh province in the far west to Papua province in the far east.
In Jakarta, the eclipse will "only be 88 percent," Avivah predicted.
Caution: wear special glasses
According to data from Indonesia's National Institute of Aeronautics and Space (LAPAN), the eclipse will have the longest duration – 3 minutes and 17 seconds – over Plum Island, Maba, in North Maluku.
However, Avivah warned that people keen to watch the eclipse should protect their eyes by wearing special glasses with special filters.
"We can watch, but must use proper sun-filter glasses, not the usual sunglasses," Avivah said.
"In fact, when the sun is fully covered, we can see it with the naked eye but have to be quick, because the rays at this stage are very dangerous," she explained.
High enthusiasm
The astronomical phenomenon has generated much buzz across Indonesia, with at least a half-million domestic tourists and 5,000 foreign tourists converging on parts of the country where the total eclipse will be visible, according to tourism officials.
Marina Ariyani, 30, who works for a company in Jakarta, traveled to Palembang in South Sumatra to witness the rare occurrence.
She booked her plane ticket a month ago and bought a pair of special glasses for eclipse-viewing.
"This natural phenomenon is very rare. I want to see it first hand and witness the rare moment," Marina told BenarNews.
Reseno Arya, an employee at the Ministry of Tourism, said hotels were now fully booked and prices for plane tickets had soared as a result of the excitement around the eclipse.
The ministry was distributing 20,000 pairs of the special glasses for free, he told BenarNews.
Special prayer
Meanwhile the Ministry of Religious Affairs called on Muslims to offer a special prayer during Wednesday's total eclipse.
The nation's main Istiqlal Mosque in Jakarta was scheduled to hold a solar eclipse prayer at 6:20 a.m. (local time) until the eclipse ends.
"People in Indonesia are called upon to carry out the eclipse prayer in mosques and nearby mushalla, according to the time schedules of the eclipse in each place," said Machasin, the head of the ministry's department of Islamic Community Supervision.
Officials at the ministry are hoping that the natural occurrence will help galvanize people's faith in God, he added.


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BENARNEWS- A student has been killed in Syria after allegedly joining Islamic State (IS), Indonesia's counterterrorism agency said Thursday, adding it would conduct DNA tests to confirm the dead man's identity.
Rudi Jaelani, a graduate of Bandung Islamic University in West Java, was killed in a battle in Raqqa, National Counterterrorism Agency's (BNPT) official Wawan Purwanto told BenarNews.
"The status we received was that he was killed in Raqqa," Wawan said, without indicating when Rudi died. His agency had information on only one person and did not know the nationalities of others who may have been killed at the same time, Wawan added.
The Indonesian Foreign Ministry, however, said it could not confirm reports of the young man's death.
"We have very limited information [from the Indonesian embassy in Damascus] to be able to confirm the death of the student. So there is no certainty," Foreign Affairs spokesman Arrmanatha Nasir told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday.
'Dr. Partizan'
The information about Rudi's death came from a couple of messages posted on Twitter on March 5 by a user who calls himself "Dr. Partizan" and claims to be a Kurdish activist.
He tweeted that 12 Indonesians had entered Syria through Turkey to join IS. Using another acronym for IS, Dr. Partizan claimed that Kurdish fighters had recovered Turkish electronic visas and Turkish airline tickets that belonged to "the now dead Indonesian ISIS fighters."
Dr. Partizan also posted photos of the visas, several stubs of boarding passes for a Turkish Airlines flight from Jakarta to Istanbul, a travel agent's receipt, together with images of Rudi's academic transcript and a letter of good conduct on his behalf from the Indonesian police.
"Right now, we rely on the help of the Indonesians and foreigners who support the efforts of the Indonesian consulate in Damascus and Aleppo to ensure and to get the confirmation," Arrmanatha said.
Meanwhile, BNPT is conducting its own investigation into the case, according to Wawan.
"We still need verification. It cannot be a brief investigation, there must be clear information on DNA, fingerprints and biographical data," he said.
Name, appearance changed
Wawan said the government has had a tough time verifying identities of Indonesians who are alleged IS members.
"It is difficult for us, as they conceal themselves, change their appearance and use  a lot of aliases," he said.
Those who are recruited by IS enter Syria through third countries, such as Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.
"It is difficult to trace, because once they get into Turkey, for example, there is a person through which they will get into Syria by using  fake passports," Wawan added.
This is not the first time that an Indonesian student has signed up with IS in Syria, according to Wawan, an on-staff expert at the BNPT's Prevention Division. Previously,  Indonesian students and workers in Syria also joined the radical group.
Through September 2015, about 800 Indonesians were confirmed to have joined IS abroad, according to BNPT data. Reports claim that 50 of them have been killed in Syria and about 100 have returned to Indonesia.
The BNPT's figures, however, are very different from the same type of statistics disseminated last month by Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo.
While speaking in California during a special summit of the U.S. and Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Jokowi stated that 329 of his fellow citizens had joined IS in Syria. That figure, he said, was relatively small compared with Indonesia's population of 252 million.
To verify the deaths of Indonesians in Syria or Iraq, the BNPT has coordinated with other fighting groups in the region, asking them to send samples from dead people that are needed for DNA tests, such as blood, teeth or hair.
"So there is no need to send the body directly. We have communicated with the Syrian side to send the sample data, but we have to wait because of the emergency situation there," Wawan said.


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BENARNEWS- Every year, the day after Nyepi – the Hindu New Year's Day in Indonesia – a parade of relatives and friends descends on the home of Sucipto, a Hindu community leader in Glanggang Village of Malang regency in East Java.
The well-wishers are not just Hindus, but Muslims too. This religiously diverse village is like many others in mostly moderate, Muslim-majority Indonesia – it has nurtured a tradition of interfaith tolerance for decades.
Nyepi lasts for three days and its mood – both joyful and contemplative – infects the whole village.
Hindus stay home and remain quiet on Nyepi, which fell on March 9 this year, but the following day is for visiting.
"More guests come in the evening. My living room can't hold any more," Sucipto told BenarNews from his home where the coffee table was laden with snacks, bananas and mineral water for visitors (below).
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Muriadi, Sucipto's former junior high school mate, visits Sucipto on Nyepi every year. And every year, Sucipto shows up on Idul Fitri, Islam's most festive day, at Muriadi's house.
"We respect each other's belief," Muriadi said.
Muriadi says he has taught his children that same spirit of tolerance.
"It seems natural, as the neighborhood has been practicing religious tolerance for such a long time," he said.
Another visitor was Sucipto's Muslim niece, Wahyuni. Every year, her family makes the 50-kilometer (31-mile) trip by motorcycle from their home in another village to pay respects to Sucipto. Interfaith relations are a family affair.
"Our family members vary. Some of them practice Hinduism, some Islam, and others are Christians. We respect each other," said Wahyuni.
Day of Silence
About 170 of 1,000 families in Glanggang Village practice Hinduism. The rest are Muslims and Christians, both Protestant and Catholic.
Traditional Hindu ornaments, called penjor, decorate front yards in the Karang Tengah neighborhood, where the Eka Kapti Hindu temple and a mosque stand 100 meters apart.
The whole village was silent on Nyepi, when Hindus cannot work, go out, light fires or use electricity. Although not required or requested to do so, many Muslims observed the same restrictions.
Kasir, who is Muslim, turned off all the lights in his house and stayed home much of the day.
"It is my way to show respect to those who observed the day," he said.
Another Muslim, Misenah, did not run her tempeh-making business because the machines that make the fermented soybean cakes are noisy.
"No, I don't mind to halt production for just one day. It's my way to respect them," she said.
Mosques in the village announced the call to prayer on loudspeakers, but Muslims went home quickly afterward, Kasir said.
Sucipto, for his part, says he has attended Qur'an recitals or other religious activities held by his non-Hindu neighbors.
He joins others neighbors to clean up the village's cemetery complex twice a year: to welcome Islam's holy month of Ramadan, and Hindu Nyepi.
Kasir, meanwhile, helped stage manage the Tawur Kesangaceremony, the day before Nyepi, when Hindus make and burn ogoh-ogoh, ornate paper sculptures symbolizing evil spirits, in a nearby field.


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BENARNEWS- A man arrested by Indonesia's counterterrorism force in Central Java last week died in custody and his body bore signs of torture, his family says.
Siyono, 34, was buried at his home village of Pogung in Klaten regency before dawn Sunday, five days after his arrest on March 8.
Hundreds of mourners shouted "Allahu Akbar" as a vehicle carrying the corpse entered the village at 2:15 a.m. Sunday (below).
Villagers would not allow security personnel – toting guns and shields – to approach the home of the deceased.
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Siyono was healthy when arrested, but his corpse bore injuries including two black eyes, a broken nose and bruises on the right side of his face, according to Sri Kalono, a lawyer for the family.
"He was still bleeding from the back of his head and there were traces of dried blood. His legs were swollen and blackened, and one of his left toenails was almost detached," he said.
The family has not seen a warrant for Siyono's arrest and has no idea why he was taken away, the lawyer said.
Sri Kalono said he had reported the death to the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM), to a police body that monitors police conduct and professionalism, and to the Indonesian Child Protection Commission.
'A fight took place'
Siyono was arrested based on information from a terrorist suspect with initial T, alias W, police spokesman Agus Rianto told reporters in Jakarta.
Densus 88 officers took Siyono into custody to search for a weapon, but Agus did not say what kind of weapon or if Siyono was linked to terrorism, according to reports.
"After about two hours of searching, the members brought the suspect back. But on the way, the suspect resisted the members and attacked the members guarding him, and a fight took place in the vehicle," SuaraMerdeka quoted the police spokesman as saying.
Authorities took Siyono to Bhayangkara Hospital in Yogyakarta, but he died there. His body was taken to the Kramatjati Police Hospital in Jakarta, Agus said.
Sri Kalono questioned the cause of death given by police, according to multiple media reports, that Siyono was weak after fighting with Densus 88 members.
"It is very unlikely that Siyono would have had the nerve to resist and fight Densus 88," Sri Kalono told BenarNews.
Trips to Sulawesi
Siyono, a father of five, was arrested March 8, shortly after carrying out sunset prayers at a mosque near his house, witnesses said.
Three men led him away. Siyono's father Marso and brother Wagiyono, who were with him at the time, saw nothing unsual about it, thinking the men were Siyono's friends.
"They also went into the mosque, but before prayers finished one of them went out," Marso said.
The father said that over the past year his son had traveled to Sulawesi to try to make money in cocoa farming.
Siyono had came home the day before his arrest after receiving news that his father-in-law had died, Marso said. A month earlier, he had also come home to see his family.
The family realized Siyono had been arrested by Densus 88 on March 10 when armed police in face masks arrived at his home and searched it.
The search uncovered nothing, according to Marso. Police took photo copies of his identity card, his family identity card, and his motorcycle.
The place was packed with children at the time, according to Wagiyono.
Siyono's wife Suratmi, a kindergarten teacher, was teaching dozens of kids at her home while a new kindergarten building was being constructed.
The family learned Siyono had died Friday at midday when a police officer arrived at the house requesting a family representative to go to Jakarta.
"They said it was for a visit, but I had a bad feeling about it," Marso said.


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BENARNEWS- Security forces in Indonesia shot dead two ethnic Uyghurs during their hunt for the country's most wanted militant in a remote part of Sulawesi, one of the archipelago's main islands, a senior police officer said Wednesday.
The men were among six Uyghurs from China's Xinjiang region who are believed to have joined wanted militant Santoso's Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group, Central Sulawesi Police Chief Rudy Sufahriadi told a press conference.
Santoso had declared allegiance to the Islamic State terror group in an audio recording released by the MIT in July 2014.
The two Uyghurs were killed in a shootout Tuesday in Poso's Lore Peore district between suspected militants and security forces, Rudy said.
Four more Uyghur men are still with the group, according to police, who said they obtained the information from a captured MIT militant.
'Persecution'
The men are from the Uyghur Muslim minority group in China's Xinjiang region, where Beijing is pursuing a "strike hard" campaign to quell unrest and has launched crackdowns on civil society.
Persistent violence in the region has led to hundreds of deaths which Chinese authorities blamed on Islamic extremism and foreign influence. Rights groups say the violence was a response to draconian restrictions on the region's religious and cultural life.
The World Uyghur Congress linked the Uyghur killings in Indonesia to alleged Chinese persecution of the minority group.
"Uyghurs cannot bear Chinese persecution, and are therefore forced to flee their homes to go all over the world," Dilxat Raxit, spokesman for the Uyghur exile group, told BenarNews.
"If there are individuals who have been involved in extreme behavior, Beijing should bear direct political responsibility," he said.
"This is because China's brutal crackdown has resulted in a large number of Uyghur fugitives, who were influenced differently in different countries."
He expressed concern that the Chinese government might use the Indonesian incident "to carry out even harsher crackdowns on Uyghurs in the name of fighting terrorism."
'From China'
Indonesian police identified the two dead Uyghurs as "Farok alias Magalasi Bahtusan, and Nuretin alias Abdul," Rudy told reporters.
"The identification process moved quickly because we involved an MIT member who was captured alive, Zaelani. He said the two bodies were those of Farok and Nuretin from Xinjiang, China," Rudi said.
The corpses were being held at the Bhayangkara hospital in Palu, the capital of Central Sulawesi province, pending further investigation, he said.
According to Zaelani, the two joined the MIT group in the middle of 2015, police claimed.
Indonesian officials are not sure how the Uyghur men managed to enter Indonesia and travel to Poso.
A series of military-police operations has brought hundreds of personnel to the remote and mountainous region since January 2015 in an effort to crush the MIT group and capture Santoso.
Questions
MIT is thought to number around 30 people, including three women from West Nusa Tenggara province, hundreds of miles away, who reportedly joined the group in 2012 after their husbands were killed in Poso.
"With the death of Farok and Nuretin, we believe there are still four other Uyghurs with Santoso and his gang in the Poso hinterlands, because Zaelani has told us there were six of them in all," Central Sulawesi police spokesman Hari Suprapto told BenarNews.
"We are investigating how they were able to get into Poso, who was their escort, and what role they had in MIT," Hari said.
A number of Uyghurs have been picked up by Indonesian police in recent years and accused of militant activity. In December 2015, police arrested a Uyghur man in Bekasi, West Java who was allegedly involved in planning a suicide bomb attack.
In July, four Uyghur men were sentenced to six years in jail each on terrorism charges, after being arrested in Poso in September 2014 allegedly on their way to join the MIT.
The two Uyghur men who were killed apparently joined Santoso in Poso when security forces were carrying out a massive operation to track him down, a local activist pointed out.
"They managed to get through, and there were six of them. Now there are four, since two are dead. Even with just four, it's a risk for police," said Moh Affandi, director of the Central Sulawesi Institute for Legal Studies ahd Human Rights Advocacy (LPS-HAM).
The six Uyghurs undoubtedly brought weapons and explosives with them when they joined MIT, he said.
"Their presence in MIT raises many questions. It's up to the police to answer them," he said.


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BENARNEWS- An Indonesian woman is on her way home after being evacuated from Raqqa, Syria, the self-proclaimed capital of the so-called Islamic State, the Indonesian embassy in Damascus said in a statement Wednesday.
Migrant worker Sri Rahayu binti Masdin Nur, 40, a native of West Nusa Tenggara, was trapped for more than three years in the city, according to the statement.
"After careful planning and looking for the right time, Sri was evacuated through the mountainous Raqqa and Aleppo terrains in a clandestine journey of six days," it said.
Since conflict erupted in Syria in 2011, Indonesia has repatriated almost 13,000 migrant workers from the Middle Eastern country, embassy staff said.
Heads on a road
Sri went willingly to Syria in February 2011 to work as a housemaid in the city of Aleppo. When her contract ended two and a half years later, she was placed with an elderly Syrian engineer in Raqqa.
As the Syrian conflict heated up, Sri requested to return home. But an employment agent told her – falsely – that the Indonesian Embassy in Damascus had closed and there were no more flights to Indonesia, the statement said.
At the time, the Syrian civil war had raged for two and a half years, and Raqqa was under the control of the Free Syrian Army.
Three months later, at the end of 2013, IS entered Raqqa and claimed it as their capital.
Many local residents fled, but Sri's employer chose to stay.
Sri witnessed IS cruelty first hand on several occasions, according to the embassy statement. One day, at the market, she saw decapitated heads lining the road.
After that, she rarely left the house unless it was urgent.
With the city under IS control, it was very difficult to secure basic necessities. During Ramadan 2014, to get a loaf of bread, she had to sleep in a bakery, the embassy statement said.
Rescued
The embassy learned about Sri in June 2015 and launched efforts to evacuate her.
An embassy lawyer pressured her employment agency to assist her, but the agency said it was impossible to get someone out of Raqqa.
But one day, an employee of the agency who knew Raqqa well agreed to be sent to rescue her. The journey out took six days.
"To fool the IS soldiers, Sri and the agency employee said they were husband and wife," the statement said.
Sri arrived at the Indonesian Consulate in Aleppo in January 2016 and was brought to Damascus on March 12 for repatriation to Indonesia.
Indonesia's Ambassador to Syria Djoko Harjanto praised collaborative efforts that led to her rescue.
"Without a strong network between the Embassy in Damascus, the Syrian government, and the local community leaders, it would be impossible to carry out the mission to protect citizens in the middle of the turmoil of the Syrian conflict," he said.
Syria-bound
It was not the first such rescue, according to AM Sidqi, an embassy staff member.
"In January 2016, the embassy also managed to rescue a woman from Subang named Casih Binti Waan from the siege of IS in Deir Ezzor. The evacuation was conducted by a helicopter of the Syrian army," Sidqi said.
He added that since the conflict erupted in Syria in 2011, the Embassy had repatriated almost 13,000 migrant workers to Indonesia.
The Indonesian government has also responded to reports of Indonesian nationals joining IS, according to Fajar Nurhadi, chief of the division for the Protection of Indonesian Citizens Abroad at the Indonesian Foreign Ministry.
"Most of the reports come from police and people who have lost contact with relatives after getting news that they wanted to go Syria. We continue our prevention and rescue efforts," Fajar told BenarNews.
"Our representatives meet individuals or groups who want to go to Syria and we coordinate with the local police and immigration officers to deport them," he said.
According to Fajar, some mention economic reasons for joining IS. They are lured by big salaries and benefits promised by IS, he said.
According to data from the Foreign Ministry, some 217 Indonesian citizens have been arrested and deported from abroad, mostly from Turkey, before crossing to Syria, allegedly to join the extremist group .
On March 13, 14 women and children who claimed to want to join family members in Syria were stopped at Jakarta's international airport just before departing for Turkey. Police told them to return home after questioning them.
According to the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), through September 2015, about 800 Indonesians had joined IS abroad.
In February, Indonesian President Joko Widodo told an Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) summit that 329 of his fellow citizens had joined IS in Syria. That figure, he said, was relatively small compared with Indonesia's population of 252 million.
On Tuesday, a West Jakarta court convicted and sentenced a man to three and a half years in jail for supporting IS, bringing to 13 the number of IS supporters serving prison sentences in Indonesia.


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BENARNEWS- Almost a month has passed since Nurya Ayu has received any orders for her food business, forcing her to live off her meager savings.
Nurya, who is known as Nur, belongs to a community of 300 transvestites who live in the Central Javanese city of Yogyakarta.
Until Feb. 24, she studied at Al Fatah, Indonesia's only pesantren – or Islamic school – for transvestites, but she said her catering business has suffered since the school was forced to close on that day because of opposition from a hardline Muslim group, the Islamic Jihadist Front (FJI).
"We are transvestites, but we also have a religion and a right to exercise our religion safely and comfortably," Nur, who used to cook for the students at the school, told BenarNews.
Nur (pictured below) still lives with three other transvestites in a house that served as a venue for the pesantren, until the school's closure. She feels uncomfortable with worshipping at other mosques in the area because she is afraid about how other people might react, said Nur, who first recognized that she was a transvestite in 1982, when she was 14 years old.
The school's closure has occurred amid a growing wave of homophobia and hostility toward the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community in Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim nation.
Al Fatah closed soon after the nation's most influential clerical body, the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI), issued a fatwa stating that it is a crime for people to engage in same-sex, bisexual or transgender activities.
Homosexuality is not outlawed in Indonesia – except in Aceh province, where Sharia law is enforced. Last year, the council issued another fatwa saying that people who engaged in "vile" or "deviant" acts should face the death penalty.
In February, Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu further stoked anti-LGBT sentiment by telling Tempo magazine that gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgender people were "a proxy threat" to national security.
"[LGBT is dangerous, our enemies are invisible," the minister told Tempo.
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One-of-a-kind school
Al Fatah was founded in 2008 in another part of Yogyakarta by another transgender Muslim, Maryani, who ran the school out of her rented house.
About 42 transgender people who lived in Yogyakarta came every Monday and Thursday to take classes about Islam. Unlike a traditional pesantren, which is a boarding school, most of the students at Al Fatah students went home after classes.
Maryani died in 2014. The school stopped until Shinta Ratri took over the pesantren and relocated it to her house on the other side of town.
But the classes became less frequent, and Shintra eventually limited them to once a week on Sundays.
The activities would start before 3 p.m., followed by Asr, the afternoon prayer. A Quran lesson and a short letter reading session led to Maghrib, the after-sunset prayer. That was followed by Dhikr, the silent recital of prayers, until the time for evening prayers which continued with dinner. The evenings would end with members telling each other about their experiences.
"We use this [sharing] to find solutions to questions and problems we face," Shinta, who is a transvestite, told BenarNews.
A special place
Shinta said she decided to take over the school because she realized that transvestites were confused about Muslim worship practices, which call for the segregation of the sexes during prayer services.
Her goal was to create a special space that would offer guidance about Islam to members of marginalized groups, such as trans-genders and people with disabilities. She consulted with at least 10 Islamic scholars.
"I was not just looking for support or votes in favor, but also was eager to learn from those who disagree," she said.
Seeking a new – and safe – venue
Although the pesantren has closed and its religious activities and classes have stopped, Shinta is trying to find a new venue for housing the school.
"What I'm looking for is not only a place, but also security for me and my friends because a lot of them are traumatized," Shinta said.
She could not understand why the surrounding community in her neighborhood decided to close the pesantren, because relations with the neighbors had been good, she said.
But Jati Bayubroto, the leader of Banguntapan sub-district, said that many residents had complained about the existence of the transgender pesantren over the last year, and complaints had intensified in recent months.
"People still cannot accept that such a community was gathered there," Jati told BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- Bent slightly forward, 80-year-old Hersri Setiawan carefully inspects a muddy and mossy tomb in front of him.
"Heru ... Her ... Ru," he says softly as the camera zooms in on his hand pointing toward letters engraved on the headstone.
"Yes, this is Heru," he says, beckoning his wife, Ita Nadia, and their daughter, Ken, to come over.
The three gather around the tomb, clearing the weeds around the grave that holds the remains of Hersri's old prison cellmate from one of the darkest episodes in modern Indonesian history: the anti-communist purge in 1965-66 that followed an attempted coup against President Sukarno.
The scene is from an Indonesian-made documentary film "Buru, Tanah Air Beta (Buru, My Homeland)," which first screened in Jakarta on Sunday after its originally scheduled premiere at the German Cultural Center in the city was canceled last week.
Police ordered that screening to be canceled following a report of a threat from a community group.
The documentary by Indonesian director Rahung Nasution tells the journey of former political prisoner Hersri Setiawan to Buru, an isle within Indonesia's Maluku island-chain.
In the years after the attempted coup in September1965, many people with alleged links to the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) were imprisoned on Buru without trial. The PKI was blamed for the failed coup, and at least 500,000 people – many of them suspected communists – were killed by the military and civilian death squads in the months that followed it.
That chapter of the Southeast Asian country's history remains a taboo subject in Indonesian society, and few – if any – Indonesian filmmakers have dared to tell this story. Two acclaimed documentaries about the counter-communist purge, "The Act of Killing" (2012) and "The Look of Silence" (2014), were both nominated for Oscars but made by an American, Joshua Oppenheimer.
'Vengeful eyes'
During the dictatorship of President Soeharto, Buru was one of the main places for the banishment and imprisonment of political dissidents – a place where Hersri spent time with his friend, Heru Santoso. Heru also was Hersri's cellmate while the two were incarcerated in Jakarta.
"We met and we became close," Hersri tells his wife and daughter in another scene.
It was not the first time that Hersri tried to find where Heru was buried.
Before he found his best friend's grave in May 2015 – when the documentary was shot – Hersri had secretly visited the island in 1997 to find it, but to no avail.
The film recounts many of Hersri's memories of Heru.
For example, Heru once asked Hersri to join him in an attempt to escape from the penal colony, but Hersri – a former writer for a banned cultural organization with alleged links to PKI – rejected the idea.
The scene ends with a poem read by Hersri:
"... shadow of striped uniform
Vengeful eyes of the military
Shadows of guns
Blasting above heads ..."
Timor Leste
Director Rahung said the idea for his film began in 2004 when he met Hersri in Timor Leste, a country that, after 24 years under Indonesian occupation, voted for its independence in 1999.
Hersri, who worked as a translator for the Timor Leste Reconciliation Commission, told him about his experience as a prisoner on Buru island.
"He told me, 'I wanted to do a pilgrimage to Buru. Why don't you come and record my trip there?'" Rahung told BenarNews.
Without hesitation, Hersri agreed.
Filming on Buru
The documentary took shape after Rahung met artist Dolorosa Sinaga a few years later, and she encouraged him to make a film commemorating that dark chapter in the country's history.
In February 2015, Rahung conducted a survey on Buru, during which he posed as the son of a former political prisoner to evade suspicion. In May, he and his crew began shooting the film.
Rahung said he did not set out to make a profit through the documentary. He ended up spending his own money to complete the movie, which runs 48 minutes. He said he hoped that his film would educate a new generation of Indonesians about the events of 1965-66 and their aftermath.
The premiere was moved to the National Commission on Human Rights office where it was twice screened on Sunday to audiences numbering in the hundreds.
"It is safe there because it is a state institution," said Whisnu Yonar, the movie's producer.


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BENARNEWS- South and Southeast Asian governments Tuesday condemned terrorist attacks that killed at least 30 people and injured dozens more in Brussels earlier in the day.
Officials from India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore issued statements deploring the coordinated attacks in Belgium's capital that were claimed by the extremist group Islamic State (IS). Asian governments called on citizens travelling to or living in Belgium to take precautions and watch out for more terror threats.
Two Indian flight attendants were among those injured in an attack that targeted a terminal at the international airport serving Brussels.
"The two injured staff are receiving medical care. They are out of danger," an official with Indian carrier Jet Airways told BenarNews on condition of anonymity.
The injured were identified as Nidhi Chapekar and Amit Motwani, both from Mumbai, he said.
A second attack targeted a metro station in Brussels, which serves as the seat of both the European Union (EU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
"Belgium, do not be afraid! We are with you," Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo said in a message on Twitter in which he condemned Tuesday's attacks and offered the Belgian people condolences.
On Jan. 14, Indonesia became the first country in Southeast Asia to be targeted in an IS-claimed strike, which killed eight people in central Jakarta including four suspected attackers.
As of Tuesday, there were no reports of any of Indonesia's 1,200-strong expatriate community in Belgium hurt or killed by the attacks in Brussels.
A common threat
Indonesia, along with neighboring Malaysia and Singapore, has faced a growing threat from IS expanding its influence and recruiting hundreds of young fighters from the region.
As many as 1,000 Southeast Asians – mainly Indonesians and Malaysians– have travelled to Syria or Iraq to join IS, according to one estimate.
"I am shocked and appalled by the attacks in Brussels, which follow the recent attacks in Turkey," Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak said via Twitter, referring to terrorist attacks in Ankara on March 13 and Istanbul on March 19.
"These cowardly attacks are a reminder of the need for countries to unite and counter threats posed by extremism. The thoughts and prayers of all Malaysians are with the victims and their families," said Najib, whose government is partnering with the United States to build a regional center in Kuala Lumpur to fight extremist propaganda online.
Meanwhile, Thailand's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement condemning "the cruelty of terrorism which claimed many lives and wounded many innocents."
Thailand suffered its first terrorist attack last year. Twenty people were killed and 120 more wounded when a bomb went off on Aug. 17 at the Erawan Shrine, a popular tourist destination in Bangkok.
On Tuesday, a Thai Airways flight landed at Brussels International Airport in Zaventem before the attack occurred, but no members of the airline's staff or passengers were affected, Thai officials said.
Some 4,000 Thais live in Belgium, including 1,000 in Brussels.
In Singapore, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong sent a condolence letter to his Belgian counterpart, according to the Straits Times, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed its shock over news of the explosions in Brussels.
The attacks in the Belgian capital came four days after Singapore's Home Ministry unveiled stepped-up security measures aimed at countering a regional threat posed by IS.
In announcing the measures, including expanded border checks, Home Minister K. Shanmugam said "we have several possible Molenbeeks around us."
He was referring to a threat from IS supporters in neighboring Indonesia and Malaysia, as well as likening those countries to the district of Brussels where two brothers implicated in the Nov. 13 Paris attacks grew up.
Paris suspect arrested
Belgium had been bracing for follow-on attacks on its soil since the French capital was targeted in coordinated IS-claimed attacks that killed 130 people.
On Friday, Belgian authorities arrested Salah Abdeslam, a prime suspect in the Paris plot, in his home neighborhood of Molenbeek.
After terrorists struck on Tuesday, Belgian security agencies conducted raids across the country's regions as they hunted for suspects.
According to state media in Belgium, at least 30 people died and over 170 were injured when three blasts ripped through the main international airport and a metro station in Brussels.
Two of the explosions occurred in the departure lounge of the airport, officials said, adding that at least one of them was likely touched off by a suicide bomber.
The so-called Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility for the attacks, according to SITE Intelligence, a U.S.-based website that monitors online Islamic militant traffic.
India reacts
In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is scheduled to visit Brussels on March 30 for the 13th India-European Union summit, condemned the attacks.
"News from Brussels is disturbing. The attacks are condemnable. Condolences to families of the deceased. May those injured recover quickly," Modi tweeted.
Vikas Swarup, spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, confirmed that there was no change in Modi's scheduled visit to Brussels.
"We condemn the attack with strongest possible terms. We stand in solidarity with the people and government of Belgium. We offer our condolences to families of the victims," Swarup said.
"Terrorism is a global scourge and the attack in Belgium underscores once again the need to counter it united," he added.
Rohit Wadhwaney in Jaipur, India, Pimuk Rakkanam in Bangkok, Razlan Rashid in Kuala Lumpur, Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata in Jakarta and Nurdin Hasan in Banda Aceh, Indonesia contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- The U.S. State Department on Tuesday added the name of Santoso – Indonesia's most wanted militant whose group has pledged allegiance to Islamic State (IS) – to its list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
Santoso (alias Abu Wardah), who is believed to be hiding out in the jungles on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, heads the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group, which the department also lists as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
"Today's action notifies the U.S. public and the international community that Santoso is actively engaged in terrorism," the State Department said in a note issued to the media on Tuesday.
Santoso and MIT members now face the possibility of U.S. sanctions, such as denying them access to the U.S. financial system, State Department officials said. The designation also enables unspecified actions by American law enforcement agencies, according to the note.
A series of joint operations has brought hundreds of Indonesian military and police personnel to remote and mountainous regions of Central Sulawesi province since January 2015, in an effort to crush the MIT and capture Santoso.
Authorities claim they have cornered the group. Since March 16, security forces have shot dead six people they say are MIT militants, including three ethnic Uyghurs from China's Xinjiang region.
Remnants of Jemaah Islamiyah
Terrorism experts say the MIT is a descendant of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the Southeast Asian affiliate of al-Qaeda, which was responsible for the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings that killed hundreds of people.
MIT under Santoso has carried out multiple killings and kidnappings in Indonesia over the past few years, U.S. officials said.
The statement cited the killing of two policemen by MIT in August 2012; the bombing of an Indonesian police station a month later; the November 2012 shooting of a police chief; and the shootings of four members of the national police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob) in December 2012.
Indonesian police said the MIT was responsible for the beheading of three farmers last September, days ahead of an international sailing event in the nearby Gulf of Tomini, Indonesia's largest bay.
Santoso had declared allegiance to the Islamic State terror group in an audio recording released by the MIT in July 2014.
MIT is thought to number around 30 people, including three women who reportedly joined the group in 2012 after their husbands were killed in Poso, a restive area in the heart of Sulawesi with a history of sectarian conflict.
In December 1998, inter-communal violence broke out between Muslim and Christians in the town of Poso, capital of the regency of the same name, at a time when Muslim migrants from Java were changing the area's religious make-up.
Before a peace pact was signed in December 2001, hundreds of people were killed and thousands left homeless. The conflict drew militants from other parts of Indonesia who believed they were defending fellow Muslims in Sulawesi.
Keisyah Aprilia, in Palu, Indonesia, contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Ministers from 45 countries who met in Indonesia this week to discuss human trafficking agreed that they had to prepare better for sudden influxes of migrants and refugees, and address root causes of irregular migration.
The Sixth Ministerial Conference on the Bali Process on People Smuggling, Trafficking in Persons and Related Transnational Crime ended Wednesday in Bali with member-states agreeing to implement a mechanism for responding more quickly to and consulting one another over future crises.
They also agreed to conduct a review of last year's irregular migration crisis in Southeast Asia –which saw thousands of stateless Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar and Bangladeshi migrants come ashore in Indonesia and Malaysia – in order to figure out what went wrong and how to improve their responses to large-scale influxes.
"Ministers agreed the review would consider options for improving national, regional and subregional contingency planning and preparedness for potential large influxes of irregular migrants in the future," the conference's co-chairs,  Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi and Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, said in a statement at the end of the two-day meeting in the Balinese town of Nusa Dua.
"Ministers further acknowledged the need for more agile, timely responses by Bali Process members," the co-chairs added.
Unprecedented declaration
The Bali Process was started in 2002 so nations could work with another to develop strategies for combating people-smuggling in the region.  Its members also include Myanmar, Bangladesh, India, Thailand and Malaysia.
And for the first time in its 14-year history, the grouping's member-states on Wednesday issued a non-binding Bali Declaration, in which they pledged to keep working together to respond to increasingly complex migration crises.
According to the declaration, the international nature of irregular migration required a comprehensive approach based on collective responsibility, while respecting the sovereignty and national interests of Bali Process members.
"We underline the need to address the root causes of irregular movement of persons and forced displacement, and the frequent linkage between the breakdown of good governance and the ease of people smuggling and irregular migrant ventures," the declaration stated.
"Our collective response should promote good governance, rule of law, full respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, a sense of security and belonging and inclusive economic growth," it said.
According to Retno, the Bali Process seeks to protect migrants and victims of transnational crime through supporting efforts to solve the problem of human trafficking, including through community-based initiatives, said Retno, Indonesia's top diplomat.
"Criminal and human trafficking still occur, while refugees and asylum seekers continue to arrive, so those make complex, major problems," Retno said.
Bishop, her Australian counterpart, said members had agreed to work together to find long-term solutions for migrants and refugees. Members also were encouraged to pursue criminal charges against human traffickers.
"This landmark Ministerial Declaration strengthens regional cooperation and determination to combat these shared challenges," Australia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement issued Wednesday.
Australia has been criticized lately for its policy of turning back boatloads of migrants and refugees heading for its shores. Last week, Canberra celebrated its 600th consecutive day of not allowing boats full of asylum seekers and migrants to reach its shores.
2015 crisis
During last year's irregular migration crisis in the Andaman Sea, foreign ministers from Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand met to discuss the large inflow of refugees from Myanmar and undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.
The crisis started in May 2015, when some 3,000 people from the two countries were rescued from human-smuggling boats after the vessels were forced to sail farther south. This resulted from Thailand simultaneously launching a maritime blockade on such boats and cracking down on human trafficking.
The crackdown stemmed from the discovery of the graves of 32 undocumented people at abandoned traffickers' camps along Thailand's border with Malaysia.
Thailand went on to arrest 90 people suspected of being involved in a transnational ring connected to those camps in the jungle. On March 15, the trial of the 90 suspects, including a former three-star Thai army general, opened in Bangkok.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia's Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed Tuesday that 10 crew members of an Indonesian tugboat were being held by the Abu Sayyaf Group, a militant group in the southern Philippines.
Abu Sayyaf had hijacked two Indonesian tugboats but the group had freed one of the two crews, Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi said in a statement.
"The Brahma 12 has been released and now is in the hands of Philippine authorities. Meanwhile the Anand 12 ship and the 10 crew members are still in the hands of the hostage-takers, but it is not known exactly where they are," Retno added, noting that the Anand 12 was transporting 7,000 tons of coal.
Retno confirmed the abduction of the 10 Indonesian sailors, following an investigation and communication with the ships' owner and people in Indonesia and the Philippines. She said received the initial information on Monday.
Both ships were hijacked while traveling from Putting River in Kalimantan, Indonesia to Batangas in the southern Philippines.
Retno said she did not know more specific details about the hijackings.
The ships' owner received a call on Saturday from someone claiming to be a member of Abu Sayyaf, a group known for kidnapping and holding foreigners hostage for ransom – and, in some cases, killings their captives. The United States has listed Abu Sayyaf as a foreign terrorist group.
In the case of the ship's hijacking, the hostage takers contacted its owner twice to demand an undisclosed ransom, according to the foreign ministry.
The Abu Sayyaf demanded 50 million Philippine pesos (U.S. $1.08 million) in ransom money, Indonesian State Intelligence Agency chief Sutiyoso told The Straits Times.
"Our priority is the safety of 10 Indonesian citizens who are now still in the hands of the hostage-takers. The company has passed the information to the families of the crew members that were taken hostage," Retno said.
During a news conference, she said she was communicating with Indonesian and Philippine authorities to coordinate a rescue.
Dangerous area
Meanwhile, Indonesian Seafarers Association Chairman Hanafi Rustandi confirmed that the crew members were being held hostage by the militant group. He said both tugboats were operated by a coal mining company.
Hanafi said the water near Kalimantan and Sulawesi that forms a triangle linking Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines was dangerous, because many islands in the region were Abu Sayyaf strongholds.
"They always find a way to get supplies, food – one is by hijacking a vessel," Hanafi told BenarNews.
He said the time needed to free the hostage crew members could not  be predicted because that depended on Indonesian diplomacy and the willingness of the ship's owner to pay a ransom.
"If the company wants it quickly, people in the company could pay, because they have the responsibility to dispatch the goods. Meanwhile, the families of the sailors need to be patient, because the case is being dealt by the government," Hanafi said.


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BENARNEWS- The widow of an Indonesian man who died in police custody after being arrested as a suspected militant wants an autopsy to be done on his remains, but neighbors in her home village are trying to block that.
Their resistance is so strong that people in the Central Java village of Pogung, where the woman's late husband is buried, have threatened to expel her or any other residents who support her plan to dig up his remains in order to examine the body and determine a cause of death.
Disturbing the burial ground would disrupt the calm of communal life, which already has been disturbed because of national media attention focusing on the case, locals say.
Siyono, the woman's 34-year-old husband and father of five, was buried in a local graveyard in the village in Klaten regency, five days after his arrest in the area by Densus 88, the Indonesian police's counter-terrorist unit.
The authorities did not perform an autopsy but, at the time of his death, members of Siyono's family said his body showed signs of torture.
"I just ask for my rights – this country is based on the rule of law," his widow, Suratmi, told BenarNews.
"I was given the mandate to raise these five children, so I have to be tough. Moreover, my children often ask where their father is," said Suratmi, who is being supported in her quest for justice by Muhammadiyah, one of the largest Islamic organizations in predominantly Muslim Indonesia.
Police suspected Siyono of being connected to a resurgent Jemaah Islamiyah, an extremist group linked with al-Qaeda that carried out the Bali bombings in 2002, which killed 202 people.
Siyono's home province of Central Java also is where Indonesian authorities recently arrested some suspected radicals during a nationwide crackdown that followed the Jan. 14 terror attacks in Jakarta. Eight people, including four suspected militants, died in the attacks – the first act of terrorism claimed by Islamic State in Southeast Asia.
Locals push back
In Pogung this week, the village chief went to the house of Siyono's older brother, Wagiyono, to read out a statement on the community's behalf rejecting the widow's call for an autopsy.
"I just accommodate the wishes of the community here," Djoko Widoyo, the village chief, told reporters at his office.
Since Siyono's burial on March 13, the community has seen an influx of reporters converging on the village to cover the story of his in-custody death.
"The arrival of people from the outside made locals fearful and traumatized," Djoko said.
A day before reading out the statement to Wagiyono, Djoko claimed, he had met with Siyono's brother and father who agreed not to disinter the body and perform an autopsy.
During that meeting, which was attended by other villagers, a majority of residents complained that an autopsy would further disturb the community's peace.
In reading out the statement to Wagiyono on Wednesday, Djoko listed two conditions: the family could not have an autopsy performed within the village's limits; and if the family was to dig up Siyono's remains for an autopsy elsewhere, it could not re-bury his body in Pogung.
The statement also contained a warning: any resident of the village who supported the call for an autopsy would be expelled from Pogung.
"I [will] let this issue go through the legal process," Wagiyono told reporters this week, withholding further comment.
In the meantime, police are guarding the neighborhood and volunteers from an Islamic organization are guarding Siyono's house and his burial site.
'We will bring justice to his family'
Although Suratmi and her family face the threat of being kicked out of their village, and the issue has divided the community, the widow's call for an autopsy has the backing of the influential Muhammadiyah as well as the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).
Suratmi on Tuesday met with Busyro Muqoddas, the chairman of Muhammadiyah, to discuss the case.
"Either Siyono is a terrorist or not, but he had been treated unfairly and we will bring justice to his family," Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak, chairman of Muhammadiyah's youth wing, told journalists after a closed-door meeting with Siyono's family on Wednesday.
"If Indonesia's government cannot do it, we will look [for assistance] from the International Court," Dahnil said, adding that Muhammadiyah was taking up Siyono's case at the request of his widow and Komnas HAM.
He did not know when an autopsy would be performed, but Muhammadiyah and Komnas HAM have assembled a team of forensic doctors to conduct such an exam.
He said Muhammadiyah also was ready to provide Suratmi and her five children with shelter and to facilitate Siyono's reburial outside the village, if necessary.
"We respect the locals, but we also respect the wishes of Suratmi to look for justice," Dahnil said.
Suspicious death
In other developments, Members of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS) revealed that their investigation into the case of Siyono's found discrepancies.
According to Satrio Wirataru of KontraS, Densus 88 committed at least three violations when members of the anti-terror squad took Siyono into custody.
"There was no notification of the arrest, of the house searches and seizure when these occurred from March 8 to March 10," Satrio said.
In addition, Siyono's body looked like he had been tortured.
"There were bruises on his left eye, his legs were swollen and his toenails were broken," Satrio said.
On top of that, officials intimidated members of Siyono's family, Satrio said, citing the example of how the dead man's parents were asked to sign a waiver not to contest the official version of his death.
"According to his parents, there was no explanation [about] why Siyono arrested," Satrio said.
KontraS plans to submit its findings into the case before Indonesia's House of Representatives (DPR).
'It was not engineered'
For its part, the national police deny that Densus 88 caused Siyono's death.
However, National Police spokesman Anton Charliyan acknowledged in an interview that the police's special force unit did not follow proper procedures in handling Siyono.
According to Anton, the suspect was in a car with a driver and only one Densus 88 officer guarding him. When he was released from handcuffs, Siyono tried to grab the officer's weapon.
A fight ensued that resulted in Siyono's death. During the altercation Siyono's body hit the corner of the car, and the officer suffered cuts and bruises, Anton said.
"We regretted the incident, and it was not engineered," Anton told BenarNews.
"We also did not get any benefit from his death, because now we lost the key information to the whereabouts of hundreds of weapons," he added.
Ismira Lutfia Tisnadibrata and Tia Asmara, in Jakarta, contributed to this story.


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BENARNEWS- Legislators and civil society leaders are urging Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to order an independent evaluation of the country's anti-terrorism police force after a man died in its custody earlier this month.
"The Standard Operating Procedure of Densus has to be improved," House of Representatives member Asrul Sani told BenarNews.
"If not, incidents like what happened to Siyono can be repeated in the future," the legislator said, naming the suspected militant who died three days after being picked up by Densus 88 on March 8.
"The president has to act. Otherwise brutal behavior by Densus will continue," agreed Teguh Juwarno, a leader of the National Mandate Party (PAN). "Densus is often out of control. As an institution that reports directly to the president, it's up to the president to fix it," he said.
A total of 121 suspects have died while in Densus 88 custody without judicial process since the elite anti-terror squad was formed in August 2004, according to Maneger Nasution of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).
Maneger gave the figure at a press conference Friday (pictured) in Jakarta in which he appeared alongside members of a group called the Civil Society Coalition.
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(Arie Firdaus/BenarNews)
The theme of the event was "Seeking Justice for Suratmi," the widow of the deceased man, a mother of five.
Police claim the 34-year-old resident of Central Java died after he attacked his guard in a police vehicle and a fight ensued.
National Police spokesman Anton Charliyan acknowledged that the unit did not follow proper procedures in handling Siyono, but said it did not cause his death.
Criticism
Densus 88 has faced criticism in the past for excessive use of force and for not following proper procedure.
Most recently the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS) found several procedural violations in the December 2015 arrest of two individuals in Solo, Central Java.
Densus 88 did not file a report of the arrest or tell the men they had the right to legal representation.  Before releasing the men, it asked them to sign a document stating that they were suspects.
"This shows that Densus sometimes arrests people without strong information" against them, KontraS coordinator Haris Azhar said.
"Therefore, the performance and work methods of Densus must be evaluated to ensure they comply with legal procedures," he said.
'Without delay'
Many of the critics calling for the evaluation say it should be performed by an independent body – an idea backed by the central leadership of the mass Muslim organization Muhammadiyah.
Busyro Muqoddas, chairman of legal affairs and human rights for Muhammadiyah, said formation of such a panel is absolutely necessary as the work of Densus 88 and even the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) is far from professional.
"The president must immediately and without delay establish an independent team," media outlet Kompas quoted him as saying.
Beyond evaluating its performance, such an independent panel should also look into the origin of these two institutions – including whether their funding comes from foreign sources.
Financial oversight institutions "have to audit the finances of Densus and BNPT," Busyro said.
Presidential spokesman Johan Budi told BenarNews that Jokowi had not yet been informed about the requests to review Densus 88.
"I haven't heard that this has been officially communicated to the president. If it is, I will know the president's view on it. This is just now emerging in media reports," Johan said.
'There is accountability'
BNPT did not immediately respond to requests from BenarNews seeking comment on the demands for an independent review of its work and funding.
Agus Rianto, a spokesman for the National Police, denied allegations that Densus 88 is not professional in its work.
All police agencies and bodies follow clearly defined procedures, he said.
"All [requirements] are met and there is accountability," he said.
"Regarding our funding, every year we are audited by the Board of Audits (BPK). All police funding is clear, including [for] Densus. Densus is part of the police," he said.
But the police will not stand in the way of people who are unhappy with their work, he added. The force has an unit that oversees its professionalism, called Propam.
"We have Propam. Please report anything along with strong evidence," he said.
Tia Asmara contributed to this reported.


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BENARNEWS- An Indonesian man who died in police custody after his arrest in Central Java last month was a leader of a new offshoot of the extremist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), national police said Tuesday.
The 34-year-old Siyono died after being arrested on March 8 by Densus 88, the police's counter-terrorist wing, but preliminary results of an autopsy performed on his corpse on Sunday revealed bruises to his body, according to doctors. A cause of death has yet to be determined.
The autopsy was done after Siyono's remains were dug up from his grave in Pogung village, Central Java. His wife and relatives had asked for an autopsy because, they said, his corpse showed signs of torture.
At a news conference in Jakarta on Tuesday, national police officials alleged that Siyono had played a leading role in the establishment of an offshoot of JI, the group linked to al-Qaeda that carried out the Bali bombings that killed 202 people in 2002.
"Siyono became the chief of staff of Toliah Bintonah, a position equivalent with Mantiki [a top level leadership] in JI. This is a new structure in JI with a new name," National Police spokesman Anton Charliyan  told reporters.
JI has transformed into a new group called Neo JI, he said.
"Siyono had been prepared to be the commander in chief to replace Jimmy," Anton said, referring to the Neo JI commander who is serving 10 years in prison.
According to terrorism analyst Nasir Abbas, a former JI member, "the structure of the JI network is dead."
"It is still unclear what the form [of the group is], what's its name, and how it's structured. Police are still learning about this," Nasir told BenarNews, referring to Neo JI.
'A row of lies'
Muhammadiyah, an influential Muslim group in Indonesia that supports the call by Siyono's family for an ongoing investigation into his death, disputed Tuesday's accusation by police.
"A row of lies will generate the next lies. We hope the effort in seeking justice for Suratmi [Siyono's widow], can be the momentum to help improve the performance of police, the institution that we all love," said Dahnil Anzar Simanjuntak, chairman of Muhammadiyah's youth wing.
Human rights advocates and lawmakers in Indonesia last week called on President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to order an independent review of Densus 88 in the wake of Siyono's death. According to the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), 121 suspects have died in the unit's custody since the elite squad was formed in 2004.
Despite earlier objections from Siyono's neighbors, an autopsy was performed at his gravesite in Pogung without a hitch over the weekend. The nearly five-hour examination involved nine forensics doctors provided by Muhammadiyah, and a police doctor.
People came by and provided water for hundreds of members of the Muhammadiyah Youth Preparedness Forces Command (pictured below) who guarded the autopsy that began at 6 a.m., according to a local police official.
The body was re-buried in the grave afterwards.
Last week, village chief Djoko Widoyo sent a letter to Siyono's widow expressing villagers' opposition to her plan to dig up her husband's remains in order to perform an autopsy.
According to terms listed in the letter, the village threatened to kick out anyone who supported her plan to go ahead with the autopsy, and villagers would not allow her to re-bury her husband's remains in the local cemetery.
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(Kusumasari Ayuningtyas/BenarNews)
 
Wounds from blunt objects
The chairman of the team of doctors who conducted the autopsy, Gatot Suharto, told reporters that there were no gunshot wounds.
"We found wounds caused by blunt objects on his body and also broken bones," Gatot said.
Summy Hastry Purwanti a doctor representing police, confirmed evidence of violence.
"But whether that caused his death, we have to wait for results," Summy said.
Complete results should be ready in seven to 10 days.
During Tuesday's press conference in Jakarta, Arthur Tampi, the chief of the national police's medical and health division, said that, although no initial autopsy was done on Siyono's body immediately after his death, a police report dated March 11 also noted that there were no gunshot wounds.
Siyono was buried before dawn on March 13, five days after he was taken into custody.
"We used modern tools, including a CT scan, which is powerful and can be used to determine the cause of death. And the cause of death was due to bleeding in the back of his head," Arthur said.
Police spokesman Anton dismissed allegations that officers killed Siyono, pointing out that he died after an altercation with the police. Anton acknowledged procedural errors in handling Siyono, including that police released the handcuffs and that Siyono was escorted by only one officer.
"This incident was an accident. It is unfortunate," Anton said.
"If this is our way to remove the evidence, we would be the dumbest cops in the world," he said, pointing out that officers lost key information about the location of hundreds of weapons.


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BENARNEWS-A militant group in the Southern Philippines supplied Indonesia's most wanted militant, Santoso, and his Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) with weapons, police in Central Sulawesi province announced Wednesday.
Central Sulawesi is where Santoso and his militant group operate, and the information about a connection to the Philippine group Anshorut Khilafah was extracted from two suspected members of Santoso's group who are in custody, police said.
One was captured in May 2015 and the other was captured during the ongoing "Operation Tinombala," a joint effort by Indonesia's national police and armed forces to capture or eliminate MIT, a group that has pledged allegiance to the extremist group Islamic State.
Last month, the U.S. State Department placed Santoso's name on its list of Specifically Designated Global Terrorists – a move that exposes the militant commander and his MIT band to possible American sanctions and actions by American law enforcement agencies, U.S. officials said.
"We got all of this information from Santoso's man with the initial W (alias I). Moreover when we arrested him, he was about to supply more weapons from the Philippines to MIT in Poso," Central Sulawesi Police chief Brig. Gen. Rudy Sufahriadi told a news conference in Palu on Wednesday.
The suspect identified as "W" was arrested by the national police's counterterrorism squad Densus 88 on May 28, 2015. He claimed he picked up of weapons valued at Rp130 million (U.S. $9,832) and consisting of an M-16 rifle and magazines, ammunition, a grenade and a grenade launcher, which were ordered by Santoso at the end of 2014.
The weapons were handed over to W in the waters near Mindanao, Southern Philippines, by members of the Anshorut Khilafah, a hardline Islamic group.
"All those purchased guns had been turned over to Santoso. But in the ambush and several shootouts in Poso Pesisir, all those weapons were found and are now secured as evidence," Rudy said.
Rudy said W was arrested as he tried to get more weapons ordered by Santoso.
"Based on W's confession, Santoso sent Rp 220 million ($16,643) to Abu Syarifah [the leader of Anshorut Khilafah ]. However when W arrived in Manado Port and was about to cross to Mindanao, he was captured by Densus 88," Rudy said, referring to the Indonesian police's elite anti-terror squad.
W was also involved in several MIT-linked crimes, including planning an attack that killed a police officer in Gowa, in South Sulawesi province, and distributing ammunition to an armed militant group in the West Nusa Tenggara town of Bima, Central Sulawesi Police spokesman Hari Suprapto said.
"The most striking feature of W is that he was trusted by Santoso," Hari said.
Most wanted list
During the press conference, Central Sulawesi Police Chief Deputy Leo Bona Lubis, who heads Operation Tinombala, released an updated list of 29 MIT members and associates considered as the nation's most wanted fugitives.
Besides three MIT leaders – Santoso, Basri (alias Bagong), and Ali Kalora – the list includes three women from Bima and two Uyghurs.
"We know the names and faces of these 29 people based on the information given by the MIT members captured during Operation Tinombala," Leo said.
The ongoing operation started in January to capture or kill Santoso. While that goal has not been met, 10 MIT members have been killed, several have been arrested and weapons have been seized. One police officer was killed on Feb. 9.
Cornered?
Police believe the group has been cornered in the jungle and faces chronic food shortages.
Last week, a taskforce released pictures and videos from mobile phones and cameras, which were seized from MIT and show Santoso and his men eating the flesh of endangered species, including a maleo, a native bird of Sulawesi.
In one soundless video (below), Santoso can be seen eating a midget buffalo, known locally as anoa, also an endangered species.
MIT is accustomed to having supplies delivered by couriers from nearby villages, but those deliveries are limited because police have isolated the group.
Right activists contested the claim that Santoso has been cornered.
"If the conditions are like that, they [Santoso and his men] should have been captured [by now]. It is true that some had been arrested and killed, but they were only the followers, not the group's main leaders," said Mohamad Afandi, the director of a local human rights advocacy organization.
Afandi said the new videos were proof that MIT has not been cornered.
"In fact, they are still hunting and practicing shooting with ease. This is the sign that they are still doing their activities even though they are hunted by thousands of officers," he said.
 




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BENARNEWS- Four out of six Uyghurs who joined an extremist group in Indonesia headed by the country's most wanted militant have been killed in recent weeks in Central Sulawesi province, according to the local police chief.
The claim by Central Sulawesi Police Chief Brig. Gen. Rudy Sufahriadi that four Uyghurs were recently killed doubles the number of Uyghurs who reportedly died after joining Santoso's Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT), which has pledged allegiance to Islamic State extremists.
Two of the Uyghurs, Farok (alias Magalasi Bahtusan) and Nuretin (alias Abdul Malik), were killed in a gunfight with the national army and police on March 15, Rudy said last week.
That same day MIT dumped the body of another Uyghur into a river in the village of Lelo, after he allegedly tried to flee from the group. And, during a shootout a week later in the village of Rompo, a Uyghur identified as Joko (alias Turang Ismail), was killed, according to Rudy.
Two other Uyghurs, Ibrahim and Mustafa Genc (alias Mus'ab), are believed to be at-large and are on the Indonesian national police's most wanted list.
Series of arrests
Uyghurs are members of a Muslim minority in China, who mostly live in the western Xinjiang region. They also are spread across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey.
Some Uyghurs have been accused of being involved in militant groups and committing acts of terrorism.
In February, two Uyghur men pleaded not guilty to charges related to the bombing of a Hindu Shrine in Bangkok that killed 20 and injured another 120 on Aug. 17, 2015.
Last year in Indonesia, police arrested, prosecuted and convicted four Uyghur men, accusing them of trying to join MIT in Central Sulawesi, where the militant group operates. A court in West Jakarta sentenced the four to six years in prison.
As 2015 came to an end, Indonesian police arrested another Uyghur, Ali, in Bekasi, West Java, as he allegedly prepared to be a "bride" – a term coined by Islamic radical groups to describe suicide bombers – a foiled terror plot planned for New Year's Eve.
Then, in early January, police arrested two Uyghurs in Bandung, the capital of West Java.
"Both are still being processed by police. The case is handled by Densus 88," National police spokesman Brig. Gen. Agus Riyanto told BenarNews.
Training locations
According to Ridlwan Habib, a terrorism expert at the University of Indonesia, Uyghurs have entered Indonesia by illegal routes from western China via Thailand, Singapore, and the nearby Indonesian island of Batam.
"Thailand is known as a paradise for production of fake documents. If [they] passed there, they went to Jakarta and proceeded to Puncak [in Bogor, West Java]. Then they went to Makassar, from where they took a land route to Poso," he told BenarNews, referring to Poso regency in Central Sulawesi.
He said some Uyghurs came to Indonesia to train with Santoso's group before returning to China to commit acts of terror. Besides Poso, Mindanao province in the southern Philippines and Pattani province in southern Thailand also are places for militant training camps, he said.
"Military training in Southeast Asia is more economical and efficient. Many of them do not have access to Syria," Ridlwan said.
Thai officials challenge Reuters report
Meanwhile in Thailand over the weekend, Reuters quoted a Thai police official as saying that two Uyghurs who were linked to "foreign terror groups" had traveled to Phuket at the end of March, stayed one night and left the country.
However, the official quoted in the story, Lt. Gen. Suchart Teersawat, later told BenarNews that he could not confirm details about the pair.
"We are examining the issue but we cannot 100 percent confirm [this]. We were informed by foreign sources. The Uyghurs in question stayed in Thailand for a couple of days and they have already left," Suchart told Benar.
Elsewhere, Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Ahmad Zahid Hamidi said that two Uyghurs who had recently left Thailand for Malaysia were economic refugees and not terrorists, according to The Straits Times.
"They are using Thailand and Malaysia as a transit point to get to a third country and to brand them as terrorists, I think it's unfair," Straits Times quoted Zahid as saying.


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BENARNEWS- In the first such punishments meted out under expanded Islamic bylaws, a Muslim couple who committed adultery and a non-Muslim who sold liquor were caned dozens of times on Tuesday in Indonesia's Aceh province.
The couple and a 60-year-old Christian woman, who had sold alcoholic beverages in the province where alcohol is banned, were among five people caned in front of local officials and a crowd of more than 1,000 spectators in Takengon, central Aceh, after being found guilty of violating Sharia bylaws known as Qanun Jinayat.
Convicted of having an affair, the couple each suffered 100 lashes – an unprecedented punishment by caning – since Aceh expanded the bylaws in October to include corporal punishment for acts related to adultery.
The Christian woman was lashed 28 times after being held in custody for 47 days, officials said.
When the regional House of Representatives voted to broaden the Qanun Jinayat six months ago, it also paved the way for non-Muslims to be exposed to possible punishments under Sharia law in Aceh, the only province in Indonesia that enforces the Islamic code.
Under the expanded laws, non-Muslims, including Indonesian and foreign tourists, can be prosecuted if caught committing adultery, rape and homosexual acts, among other violations of Sharia, and if Indonesia's criminal code (KUHP) does not cover the alleged crime.
The updated bylaws set the punishment at 100 lashes for adulterers and homosexuals and 200 lashes for rapists of children.
Too close
Sharia law, which has been in force in Aceh since 2001, is so strict that a non-married couple cannot even be alone and in "close proximity" of each other. This crime is known as khalwat, and a man and woman each was caned three times on Tuesday after being convicted of this violation.
The canings of the five defendants took place outside the Arts and Sports Building in Takengon.
The town's chief of Sharia police, whose name is Muslim, identified the couple that had committed adultery by the initials U.M.R. and F.T.M. The former is 42 years old and the latter is 30, and a Sharia court in Takengon had convicted them of adultery on March 11, Muslim told BenarNews.
He said a team of 10 officers were assigned to take turns lashing the five convicts.
Each officer gave 10 lashes to each of the two adulterers, and a medical team checked the man and woman after every 20 lashes of the cane.
According to eyewitnesses, some of the spectators yelled for the officers to whip the adulterers harder.
"The woman did not faint. She endured the lashes," Muslim told Benar.
Convicted for adultery
Lili Suparli, who heads the intelligence division in the Takengon prosecutor's office, said the canings occurred because neither of the two adulterers appealed their convictions.
"In the trial, both confessed, thus allowing the attorney to prosecute them without any witnesses," Lili said.
Neither defendant was represented by an attorney at trial. Since caning was approved in Aceh in 2005, most defendants go to trial without legal representation.
U.M.R. and F.T.M. were arrested by civilians in a village in Central Aceh in January, then handed over to the local police for processing.
"They were captured when doing the misdeed. U.M.R. was a village head and F.T.M. is a widow," Muslim said, adding that U.M.R. had seen been removed from office.
'We reduced the penalty'
In the case of the Christian identified by the initials R.S., she was arrested at the end of last year on suspicion of selling liquor.
The Sharia court that convicted the woman decided to follow the prosecutor's charge, which called for 30 lashes.
"We reduced the penalty to be 28 lashes, because she has been imprisoned for almost two months – equal to two lashes," Lili said.
Lili confirmed that the number of Sharia violations in Aceh is increasing, especially cases involving Khalwat.


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BENARNEWS- A Philippine militant group linked to the Islamic State on Friday threatened to behead foreign hostages in 10 days if their ransom demands are not met, and kidnapped four more Indonesian sailors at gunpoint, according to media reports.
The new ransom demands for two Canadian men, a Norwegian man and a Filipino woman held by the group since September 2015 occurred hours before Abu Sayyaf members apparently kidnapped four members of a 10-member Indonesian tugboat crew late Friday.
Six sailors were able to escape and sail to Sabah, Malaysia after the four were snatched in nearby international waters, The Star of Malaysia reported, citing police in the eastern state.
It was the third attack in a month on tugboats plying the waters near the Philippines' Tawi Tawi islands, off the coast of Sabah, according to The Star. Abu Sayyaf continues to hold four sailors from Malaysia and a 10-member crew of another Indonesian tugboat captured late last month.
Deadline
The captives who face a new ransom deadline are believed to be held on Jolo island in the southern Philippines, an Abu Sayyaf stronghold, according to published reports.
Abu Sayyaf had already issued similar ransom demands for these prisoners, but Friday's was the first to carry a deadline.
In the most recent Youtube video, the men asked their families and governments to pay ransoms of 300 million Philippine pesos (U.S. $6.5 million) each as militants held machetes to their necks, SITE Intelligence Group reported. The Filipina did not speak. A masked militant said one of the four would be beheaded if ransom was not paid by 3 p.m. on April 25.
'Barbaric'
Abu Sayyaf executed Malaysian national Bernard Then, 39, in November 2015. Then had been abducted from a seaside restaurant in Malaysia's Sabah state with a woman and taken by boat to Jolo where he was held captive. The woman was released, reportedly after a ransom was paid.
Abu Sayyaf kidnapped an Indonesian tugboat crew in late March. The ship's owner was contacted by the group claiming it was holding them for ransom.
Days later, gunmen abducted four Malaysians from a ship off eastern Sabah, near the southern Philippines. The hijacking of a Malaysian registered timber-hauling barge, the M.V. MASFIVE 6, occurred when four Malaysians crew members were abducted by eight gunmen in waters off Pulau Ligitan, near Semporna on Sabah's east coast.
Malaysia's foreign ministry issued a statement condemning the kidnapping as "senseless and barbaric."
On April 9, the Philippines lost 18 soldiers during a gunfight with Abu Sayyaf on Basilan island.
"The April 9 loss manifests the difficulty and gravity of the fight against lawlessness and terrorism. At the same time, it strengthens our resolve to continue with our fight for peace ... we must quell the spread of extremist groups such as the Abu Sayyaf that threaten the lives and security of our brothers and sisters in Muslim Mindanao and the country as a whole," Philippine peace negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said on April 12.
An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that Abu Sayyaf kidnapped two Indonesian tugboat crews in late March.


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BENARNEWS- Pinning blame on leaders in Indonesia, India, Thailand, and Malaysia, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) placed those four countries along with Bangladesh in the bottom third among 180 nations evaluated in its 2016 World Press Freedom Index.
The index released on Wednesday had Indonesia, at 130, ranked highest among the five Asian nations, followed by India – the world's most populous democracy – at 133; Junta-ruled Thailand, at 136; Bangladesh at 144; and Malaysia at 146.
The annual index "reflects the intensity of the attacks on journalistic freedom and independence by governments, ideologies and private-sector interests during the past year," Paris-based RSF said in releasing the 2016 index.
Writing about the Asia-Pacific region, the report specifically cited India and Bangladesh for taking little action in response to violence against journalists and writers.
"Wherever they work, Indian journalists are exposed to growing violence. As well as frequent verbal and physical violence, attacks by armed groups are on the rise in several states and the local authorities have had little success in reining it in," RSF said in a press release.
RSF said there was almost one attack on an Indian journalist each month and four journalists were murdered in 2015, including at least two in connection with their work.
The Committee to Protect Journalists identified  those Indian reporters killed in four separate incidents last year as freelancers Jagendra Singh and Sandeep Kothari, Aaj Tak reporter Akshay Singh, and TV24 reporter Hemant Yadav.
India saw its ranking improve by three spots from last year, yet RSF criticized Prime Minister Narendra Modi's apparent indifference on the issue of press freedom.
"Journalists and bloggers are attacked and anathematized by various religious groups that are quick to take offense. At the same time, it is hard for journalists to cover regions such as Kashmir that are regarded as sensitive by the government," the report said.
"Modi seems indifferent to these threats and problems, and there is no mechanism for protecting journalists. Instead, in a desire to increase control of media coverage, Modi envisages opening a journalism university run by former propaganda ministry officials," RSF added.
Regarding Bangladesh, which moved up two spots to No. 144 on the index, RSF alluded to threats against secular writers or anyone who questioned the official religion.
"It is a bad idea to criticize the constitution or Islam, the state religion. Journalists and bloggers who refuse to submit to censorship or to censor themselves on these subjects risk life imprisonment or the death penalty," RSF's report said.
Last year alone, five secular writers were hacked to death by suspected militants in Bangladesh.
Indonesia shows improvement
Although Indonesia ranked 130th out of 180 nations and showed significant improvement by moving up eight spots on the index, RSF criticized President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo for not doing enough to uphold press freedom in his country.
"Sometimes dubbed the Indonesian Obama, President Joko Widodo has disappointed. His presidency continues to be marked by serious media freedom violations, including lack of access to West Papua, an information black hole," the report said, referring to a restive province on the eastern end of Indonesia.
"Journalists and fixers trying to work there are liable to be arrested. The problem is compounded by Indonesia's visa law, which discriminates against foreign journalists. At the same time, many poorly paid journalists accept bribes in return for positive coverage," RSF said.
Thai junta challenged
The report also took aim at the military leadership in Thailand, which dropped two spots on the index, to 136. RSF called the junta ubiquitous and all-powerful, claiming it exercised permanent control over journalists and citizen-journalists.
"Its leader, Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha, is given to frequent verbal attacks and even death threats against journalists. He is a new predator of information," the report claimed.
In November, RSF published a separate report claiming that the junta had created a "reign of terror" over the Thai media since seizing power in May 2014.
The junta's obsessiveness with peace and order – "or its use as a pretext, has stripped journalists and independent civil society representatives of the media freedom and freedom of information that they had won at great cost during the previous decade," the November report said.
Malaysia crackdown
In Malaysia, RSF criticized the country's leader for ordering police crackdowns on the media amid corruption scandals overshadowing his government.
"Prime Minister Najib Razak wages a personal war against independent media and does not hesitate to order police raids on newsrooms. These heavy-handed operations often result in arbitrary arrests," the report said.
"The persecution of outspoken journalists extends to the Internet, where sites such as Sarawak and The Edge have been blocked for reporting alleged corruption involving government officials."
Measuring the data
In compiling information for its index that gauges press freedom worldwide, RSF devised and distributed a questionnaire to journalists, lawyers and sociologists in the 180 countries.
"The criteria evaluated in the questionnaire are pluralism, media independence, media environment and self-censorship, legislative framework, transparency, and the quality of the infrastructure that supports the production of news and information," RSF explained.
In addition, a team of specialists kept a detailed tally of abuses and violence against journalists and media outlets. Scores are calculated on the basis of the questionnaire responses combined with the data on abuses and violence against journalists.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian officials said Thursday they had turned down a request from the Chinese government to exchange a fugitive Indonesian banker captured in China for four Uyghur prisoners serving terrorism-related sentences in Indonesia.
Indonesian Attorney General Agung M. Prasetyo told parliament that the government had refused the Chinese request for a four-for-one swap of prisoners, but that the Chinese had agreed to deport the Indonesian fugitive, Samadikun Hartono.
"They finally understood, and tonight we will receive and process Samadikun," Prasetyo said.
Meanwhile, an anonymous Indonesian official told BenarNews that, in exchange for Samadikun, the Indonesians had agreed to give Chinese officials unprecedented access to question the Uyghurs imprisoned in Indonesia.
Elsewhere, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, Indonesia's coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, briefed reporters in Jakarta about why Indonesia had declined to exchange the four Uyghurs for Samadikun, a former banker.
"We told them [the Chinese government], it's not that easy to do that, because they were tried on different charges linked to different cases," Luhut said at his office in Jakarta.
"Any transfer of Uyghur prisoners should be discussed separately," he added.
He pointed out that Samadikun and the four Uyghurs had committed their crimes in Indonesia, not on Chinese soil.
Beijing had asked Jakarta to trade the four Uyghurs, who were convicted last year on charges of attempting to join the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT), a militant group based in Central Sulawesi province and led by Santoso, Indonesia's most wanted militant, for Samadikun.
'The same as killing them'
In July, a West Jakarta court sentenced each of the Uyghurs – Ahmed Bozoglan, Ahmet Mahmud, Abdul Basit and Altinci Bayram – to six years in prison. They were arrested in Central Sulawesi in September 2014, after using fake Turkish passports and visas to enter the country.
Uyghurs are a Muslim minority who mostly live in Xinjiang, a province in northwestern China, but they are also spread across Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Turkey. Rights groups have accused China of persecuting Uyghurs.
During the trial of the four Uyghurs, their defense lawyers argued that they were Turkish citizens who should not be deported to China – a move that Indonesian authorities were considering then.
An Indonesian official who requested anonymity said Indonesia would face international pressure if the country had agreed to deport the Uyghur prisoners to China.
"Giving Uyghurs back to China is the same as killing them. Most probably, the Chinese government will execute them instantly," the official told BenarNews.
Because China agreed to return Samadikun, the government would grant the Chinese government access to the Uyghur convicts in Indonesia, the official said, noting that such access had never been granted before.
On the run for 13 years
Samadikun fled his country 13 years ago after being charged with corruption, but was caught by the Chinese authorities on April 14.
The charges against him were tied to the Bank Indonesia liquidity support (BLBI) case. In 2002, Indonesian president Megawati Sukarnoputri issued a decree freeing recipients from paying full shares of their portion of debts totaling 702 trillion rupiah (U.S. $53 billion).
Samadikun was a former CEO of Bank Modern, whose debt totaled 169.4 billion rupiah (U.S. $12.8 million). He escaped in 2003 after being convicted and sentenced to four years in prison.
Samadikun's arrest in China resulted from cooperation between Chinese authorities and the Indonesia's national intelligence agency, Indonesian officials said.


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BENARNEWS- Amid an outcry over the in-custody death of a Javanese man, Indonesia's national police chief said Thursday his agency would reevaluate procedures used by its counter-terrorist wing to arrest suspects.
Gen. Badrodin Haiti said he had also ordered officers from the Indonesian equivalent of police internal affairs to monitor how Densus 88 went about arresting suspected militants so that another "Siyono" incident wouldn't happen again.
Siyono, 34, died in police custody after being arrested by Densus 88 in Central Java province on March 8. Police earlier said he died during an altercation with an officer who was guarding him, but relatives and human rights advocates alleged that Siyono's body bore signs of torture.
"We've set a policy that we will monitor every arrest of suspected terrorists and we will deploy our professional security [Propam] team," Badrodin told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday, referring to a team of officers dedicated to ensuring that police procedures are followed by the book.
Badrodin's announcement came the same day that a committee of the Indonesian House of Representatives began discussing proposed tougher changes to the country's anti-terrorism law, which has raised concerns among civil liberty advocacy groups over potential abuses of human rights.
His announcement followed calls by legislators and civil society leaders urging President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo to order an independent review of Densus 88.
'Our members admitted kicking him'
During a meeting with Indonesian lawmakers on Wednesday, Badrodin detailed the chronology of events leading to Siyono's death.
He said Siyono died while Densus 88 was transporting him near a bus terminal in Wonogori, a city in Central Java, as officers searched for weapons in a suspected hiding place.
Police released Siyono from handcuffs so he could cooperate and show them the storage bunker. Instead, he attacked the officer and died from injuries sustained during the fight, Badrodin told lawmakers.
After an autopsy confirmed there was bruising to Siyono's corpse, police on April 5 announced that Siyono was a leader of a new offshoot of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an extremist group and Southeast Asian affiliate of al-Qaeda behind the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.
Indonesian Human Rights Commissioner Siane Indriani, however, disputed the police's official claim that Siyono had resisted arrest and fought with the officer.
The autopsy, which was sought by Siyono's family, concluded that he was beaten while lying down. His body suffered damage, most severely in the chest.
The police chief later acknowledged that Densus 88 members had kicked Siyono in the chest. An internal investigation revealed that two members of Densus 88 were involved in the fight with Siyono.
"Our members admitted kicking him on the chest with their knees," Badrodin said.
Propam not enough
Commenting on Thursday's announcement by Badrodin, terrorism expert Harits Abu Ulya questioned whether Propam could evaluate Densus 88's performance in the field objectively.
"Besides Propam being present in each operation, the [officers] should have a camera ready" in order to record evidence that would help them evaluate Densus 88, said Harits who is with the Community of Ideological Islamic Analysts (CIIA).
Densus 88 must be accountable and transparent, he said.
Contending views
Regarding the proposed changes to the Anti-Terrorism Act, Com. Gen. Tito Karnavian, who heads the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), said the law needed to be revised to prevent further terrorist attacks.
On Jan. 14, eight people, including four suspected militants, were killed in a terror attack in downtown Jakarta claimed by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group.
One proposed amendment to the law would make it a crime for Indonesian citizen to participate in terrorist training abroad or join militant groups.
"If they finally conduct an act of terror, then we all will have regrets," Tito told journalists following a seminar on terrorism and radicalization in Jakarta on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a representative of the Muslim Lawyers Team, Akhmad Kholid questioned the urgency of revising the law.
"Is that important [enough] to be revised? We fear it would become more repressive," Akhmad told BenarNews.
As an example, he cited a proposed clause that would extend detentions of suspects without a trial from six to 10 months.
An earlier version misspelled the name of the human rights commissioner and didn't give the proper rank for Tito Karnavian.


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BENARNEWS - Indonesia and Malaysia are bolstering security along their borders with the southern Philippines, and an Indonesian official has warned that the area could become "the new Somalia" after a recent surge in martime kidnappings.
Companies that ship coal from Kalimantan to the Philippines have been forced to suspend shipments or change routes after 14 Indonesian sailors were abducted at sea. Abu Sayyaf, a militant group that has declared allegiance to the Islamic State extremist group from its base in the southern Philippines, is demanding a million-dollar ransom for 10 of the men.
Malaysia, which has seen four of its nationals kidnapped, has allocated 50 million ringgit (U.S. $12.8 million) to beef up security in its easternmost state of Sabah to contain trans-border crime in the area, the nation's police chief told BenarNews.
The Royal Malaysia Police is establishing forward operating bases on islands in a special security zone off the state's coast "to anticipate any future threats in the waters of Sabah," said Police Inspector-General Khalid Abu Bakar.
Malaysia had earlier designated the area as the Eastern Sabah Security Command (ESSCOM), and bolstered security there following a daring 2013 incursion by a band of fighters loyal to a Sulu Archipelago sultan claiming the territory.
Indonesia, meanwhile, has invited foreign ministers and top defense officials from the Philippines and Malaysia to Jakarta on May 3 to discuss safeguarding maritime trade routes among the three countries.
"The agenda will be the possibility of joint patrols in the area," Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Luhut Binsar Panjaitan told reporters in Jakarta on Thursday, in announcing the meeting.
"We don't want this area to become the new Somalia," Luhut said, referring to the Horn of Africa country whose pirates raked in hundreds of millions of dollars in ransom payments between 2005 and 2011. Somalia also is home to al-Shabaab, a militant group linked with al-Qaeda.
Beheading threats
On Tuesday, Luhut said the shipping company that employs the 10 crew members kidnapped on March 29 had agreed to pay a ransom, but negotiations were still under way.
Abu Sayyaf has demanded a ransom of 50 million pesos (U.S. $1.07 million) for the 10 sailors.
The group for years has run a kidnapping racket from Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago in the southern Philippines. Last week, it issued a video in which it threatened to behead one of four hostages on April 28, if a ransom demand for two Canadians, a Norwegian and a Filipina were not paid by then.
In November, Abu Sayyaf beheaded a Malaysian citizen, Bernard Then, who had been snatched from a seaside restaurant in Sabah in May and taken to the southern Philippines.
Authorities are not yet sure who abducted four more Indonesian sailors on April 15, although Malaysian officials originally pinned the blame on Abu Sayyaf, based on accounts from six crew members who escaped and made it to shore in Sabah.
Shipping stopped
A spokeswoman for PT Patria Maritim Lines, whose crew was kidnapped March 29, declined to comment on ransom negotiations with Abu Sayyaf.
She said the company had suspended all shipments after the incident, pending improved security conditions in waters near the Tawi-Tawi islands, where the kidnapping occurred.
"Even if another company requests a coal delivery to the Philippines, we will turn them down for now," Sara Lubis told BenarNews.
PT Kideco Jaya Agung, a company based in Paser, East Kalimantan, said it was still shipping coal to the Philippines but had been forced to change routes to avoid the threat of piracy in waters near Tawi-Tawi.
"We've changed the distribution route of ships carrying coal exports to the Philippines. We use the Java Sea and Makassar Strait to reach the Philippines," company official Siswoko told BenarNews.
New bases in Sabah
In Manila, Philippines Secretary of Foreign Affairs Jose Rene Almendras assured Malaysian counterpart Anifah Aman that his government was "taking all the necessary measures" to ensure the safe release of four Malaysian sailors kidnapped April 1, a Malaysian Foreign Ministry statement said Friday.
The new security outposts being set up in ESSCOM zone off Sabah's east coast will be manned by Marine Police, Special Forces and Air Operations Force members, among other units, Police Inspector-General Khalid told Benar.
A new forward base has been operational since April 11 at Mabul Island, while another on Bangi Island would be activated soon, he said. Mabul lies off the southern coast of the eastern tip of Sabah, and Banggi lies off its northern coast.
On Monday, Malaysian Defense Minister Hishammuddin Hussein announced that the ministry would station six MD-530 G light helicopters in the area by the end of 2016.
Sabah Police Commissioner Abd. Harun Rashid told BenarNews that the choppers would strengthen security in the zone.
Malaysia police were ready to assist Indonesian security forces in combatting piracy in the area, he added.
"Malaysian police and the Indonesian security forces must work together to find ways of a more coordinated action. We are ready for any further action by parties involved, including assisting on the kidnapping," he said.
Gunawan in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, Indonesia contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Top officials from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines will convene in Jakarta on May 5 to discuss maritime security after three acts of piracy in recent weeks by armed groups operating from the southern Philippines.
The meeting will bring together the foreign ministers and military chiefs of the three countries, according to Arrmanatha Nasir, a spokesman for Indonesia's Foreign Ministry.
"This meeting is expected to produce a joint statement on security and economic activity as well as the movement of people in the region and a memorandum of understanding signed by the three commanders on maritime security," Arrmanatha told reporters at the ministry in Jakarta on Thursday.
Officials intend to ensure that cooperation and economic activity among the three countries are not disturbed by militants based in the southern Philippines, he added.
Fourteen Indonesian and four Malaysian sailors have been taken hostage since late March in acts of piracy in the Celebes and Sulu seas, which surround Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
That area is an important one for economic and trade activities among the three nations, Arrmanatha said.
"We hope this meeting will produce concrete results such as joint patrols," he said.
On Monday, Abu Sayyaf beheaded a Canadian hostage it had held since September 2015 after its ransom demands were not met. Groups in the southern Philippines hold about 20 foreigners hostage.
Indonesian initiative
The Indonesia-flagged Brahma 12 tugboat and Anand 12 barge carrying 7,000 tons of coal were hijacked at the same time during a journey from South Kalimantan, Indonesia to Batangas, in the southern Philippines, on March 26. Ten sailors were taken hostage.
The second attack occurred on April 1 when the MV Massive 6, owned by a Malaysian shipping company, was attacked by a group thought to be a splinter faction of Abu Sayyaf.
That boat was plying the Manila-Tawau route, carrying 7,500 tons of coal. The attackers seized four Malaysian crew members but released three from Indonesia and two from Myanmar.
Then, on April 16, the Indonesian tugboat Cristi returning to Indonesia from the Philippines was attacked on the maritime boundary between Malaysia and the Philippines.
Four Indonesian crew members were seized, while six – including one who was shot – were rescued by Malaysian authorities.
Arrmanatha stressed that the Indonesian captives were not on the island of Basilian when a significant battle broke out there between Armed Forces of the Philippines and Abu Sayyaf, which has declared allegiance to the Islamic State. The April 9 encounter left significant casualties on both sides.
Frequent Updates
Meanwhile, Indonesia's Foreign Ministry is receiving frequent updates on the conditions of the hostages from its Philippine counterpart.
"Our priority is the safety of the 14 Indonesian citizens," Arrmanatha said.
On Tuesday, Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo stressed that his government would not pay a ransom to groups holding hostages.
"We never compromise on things like that. We have nothing to do with ransoms," he told reporters at the presidential palace.
Jokowi acknowledged that freeing the hostages would be difficult.
"That region is currently surrounded by Philippine soldiers. We also know the hostages have been moved around," he said.
On April 19, Coordinating Minister for Politics, Legal Affairs and Security Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said the company that employed the 10 sailors snatched on March 26 had agreed to pay the 50 million pesos (U.S. $1.07 million) ransom demanded by Abu Sayyaf.


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BENARNEWS- A day after Abu Sayyaf militants freed 10 Indonesian sailors from captivity, the Indonesian Seafarers Union leader called for ships to hire armed guards to protect them against piracy in busy sea lanes linking their nation with the Philippines and Malaysia.
"It's better to provide armed guards on board, but they should be listed as crew and the company of the ship owner must pay for it," union chairman Hanafi Rustandi told BenarNews on Monday.
Indonesia Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, who greeted the freed sailors at her office in Jakarta on Monday, said no ransom had been paid to secure the sailors' release and that it occurred because the government instituted a total diplomatic strategy.
"The release is a long process, the situation in the field is also very dynamic with a very high complication level," Retno said.
Retno said the government was working to free four other sailors who were snatched from the Indonesian tugboat "Cristi" as it sailed near the maritime boundary between Malaysia and the Philippines on April 15.
"The government will see all the possible options to free the four Indonesian citizens. We monitor the location of them from time to time," she said.
Meanwhile, Hanafi of the sailors' union called for tugboats to be manned with armed guards, because of their small crews. He also called on shipping companies to insure crew members.
"Companies have to pay for insurance. Moreover these are dangerous waters, if necessary, they must also provide insurance for the crews' families," he said.
He said he hoped that these concerns by the union would be discussed during a trilateral maritime security meeting between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines scheduled for Thursday in Jakarta.
The meeting will bring together the foreign ministers and military chiefs of the three countries. Officials intend to ensure that cooperation and economic activity among the three countries are not disturbed by militants based in the southern Philippines, according to Arrmanatha Nasir, a spokesman for Indonesia's Foreign Ministry.
Crew members healthy
The 10 crew members arrived at the Jakarta Halim Perdanakusuma Air Base at 11:30 p.m. Sunday. They were taken to a military hospital in Jakarta for a medical examination, where they were reported to be healthy.
Crew member Peter Tonsen said he and the nine others were not harmed even though Abu Sayyaf occasionally threatened them if a ransom was not paid.
"We slept on palm leaves under the open sky, just like them," he told reporters on Monday in Jakarta.
Another crew member, Wendi Rakhdian, said they ate the same food as their captors.
His family rejoiced over news of his freedom.
"We are very happy, very excited. When he arrives home, we will make a celebration for him," Wendi's mother, Asmizar, told BenarNews from her home in Padang, West Sumatra. "It is up to him if he wants to go sailing again. If not, it is fine too. He's been sailing for three years."
Her husband, Aidil, could not hide his excitement. He said he learned about Wendi's release from the shipping company on Sunday afternoon.
"Now we are waiting because we still have no detailed information when my son will be sent home. If we must go to Jakarta to pick him up, we are ready to as we cannot wait to see him," Aidil said.
Sutomo, the father of crew member Bayu Oktavianto, said he heard the news on TV, and two hour later, around 4 p.m. Sunday, the shipping company called him confirming his son's release.
"That made me feel sure," Sutomo told BenarNews from his home in Klaten, Central Java. "Previously I was concerned after learning the hostage from Canada was killed."
The shipping company thanked those involved in securing the release.
"We are grateful our employees can return to Indonesia safely and hopefully can soon gather with their families. On behalf of our company, we thank all the parties for the diplomacy and moral support," said Loudy Irwanto Ellias, representing the company.
Freedom
Hanafi Rustandi does not know whether the crew members were released because a ransom of 50 million pesos (U.S. $1.07 million) demanded by Abu Sayyaf was paid.
But former Indonesian President Megawati Sukarnoputri offered her own take to reporters in Jakarta.
"Obviously, the hostages were released because the ransom was paid," Magawati said, according to Indonesian media.
However, Coordinating Minister for Political, Law and Security Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan told reporters at the presidential palace on Monday that the government remained committed to a policy of not paying ransom for hostages. On April 19, he said the company employing the hostages snatched on March 26 had agreed to pay for their release.
In the Philippines, Abu Sayyaf holds four Malaysians and citizens from Canada, Norway, the Netherlands, and China as well as seven from the Philippines.  Last week, the militant group executed a Canadian it had held since September 2015 after its ransom demand was not met.
Kusumasari Ayuningtyas in Central Java and Sulthan Azzam in West Sumatra contributed to this story.


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BENARNEWS- Sanuar Begum was among more than 1,000 Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar who landed in the Indonesian province of Aceh last May, when local fishermen rescued boatloads of desperate and hungry passengers off smugglers' vessels abandoned at sea.
A year later, only about 250 Rohingyas remain at four refugee camps scattered across the province. But although many of her fellow residents at the Bayeun camp in East Aceh Regency complain about being idle and only being able to "eat, sleep, and pray," because their refugee status prevents them from applying for local jobs, Sanuar and some others say they are relatively content in their present situation.
"My husband says it is much better here because Acehnese are good people. They welcome us very well," Sanuar, 20, told BenarNews.
Although she had the opportunity to try to leave Aceh and travel with two older sisters to Malaysia – a prime destination in Southeast Asia for Rohingyas – Sanuar said she turned down the offer because she was pregnant at the time. She has since given birth to a baby boy, Muhammad Nasrullah.
Sanuar and the others were part of a mass exodus by sea that saw more than 3,000 undocumented Rohingyas from Myanmar and migrants from Bangladesh come ashore during an irregular migration crisis that hit Southeast Asia in May 2015, and was precipitated by a Thai crackdown on human trafficking and a Thai maritime blockade on smugglers' boats.
The residents at Bayeun were so-called "Green Boat" passengers rescued by Acehnese fishermen in the Strait of Malacca on May 20, 2015, after the governments of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia refused to allow their vessel to land.
As many as 434 passengers were rescued in that incident, including dozens of Bangladeshi migrants. Now some100 Rohingya refugees are left at the camp in Bayeun. Since May 2015, more than 800 Bangladeshis and Rohingyas have been repatriated in three batches, according to local officials.
The camp is housed in an abandoned paper mill. The refugees live there and are supported by the International Organization for Migration (IOM) through aid from Japan, the United States and European Union.
Many of the Rohingyas are children who have learned to speak Indonesian fluently. Some of the grown-up residents have married other inmates and dozens of babies have been born at the camps across Aceh.
"I wish to stay in Aceh forever. But if I was not allowed, I would move to Australia or the United States, according to the IOM. So my wife, five of our children and I can live in peace," Jamal, a 37-year-old Rohinyga resident of the camp, told BenarNews.
Busy but jobless
But others say they are tired of remaining idle and want jobs so they can earn some money for their families back in Myanmar.
When asked what they had been doing for almost a year in Aceh, some replied in unison, "Here we only sleep, eat, sleep again and pray."
Many of the other Rohingyas had left the camp in search of jobs in Malaysia, where the average wage for Rohingyas is 50 ringgit (U.S. $12.70) per month, Jamal said.
Like countless Rohingyas, Jamal escaped from Myanmar where members of the Muslim minority flee religious persecution and are treated as second-class citizens.
"I was a cook in a hotel. When the riots occurred, I was beaten up. They fired me after that and I lost my job," he told Benar, referring to riots in his home state of Rakhine in 2012.
Jamal stands out from his fellow inmates at the camp. He keeps up his dignity by wearing a suit every day, along with a pair of donated shoes.
"I have to save my money. I bought their belongings provided by IOM and I sold them to a nearby market. I have five kids and a wife to feed," he said.
To kill their boredom while being jobless, other residents spend their time at the camp planting vegetables and raising chickens.
Others take English and Arabic classes, as well as learn other skills.
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Rohingyas learn English from textbooks at the camp in Bayeun, March 27, 2016. (Nurdin Hasan/BenarNews)
"We bought the vegetables planted in their garden, and feed them from their own garden. So they can earn a small amount of money. If they can harvest abundantly, we help them sell it in the market," said Usman A. Rahman, a local government official who is in charge of the camp in Bayeun.
The local government has been working together with IOM and the U.N. refugee agency to train the camp's residents in various skills, he said. For example, the women have been taking sewing classes.
"We hope that when someday they move to other countries, they have already mastered some skills to easily get jobs," Usman told BenarNews, noting that the Indonesian government's policy did not allow refugees to obtain jobs in the country.
'All I can do now is pray'
Some of the Rohingyas were arrested in North Sumatra after escaping from the refugee camps and while trying to leave for Malaysia.
They were eventually returned to the camps in Aceh.
These include Asia Hatu, 23, and her son Muhammad Harun, 6.
"I wanted to leave because my husband is in Malaysia. But now I give up. I don't want to run away anymore," she told BenarNews. "All I can do now is pray. I just hope that one day there is a miracle that will reunite me with my husband."


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BENARNEWS- Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines agreed Thursday to a four-point plan for stopping hijackings and kidnappings in busy sea lanes surrounding their countries by establishing three-way hotlines and coordinating maritime patrols, among other measures.
At the end of a one-day trilateral meeting in Yogyakarta the three neighbors pledged through a joint declaration to implement immediate measures for staving off rising acts of piracy in the Celebes and Sulu seas, including abductions by Islamic militants based in the southern Philippines.
"We expect that the cooperation of the three countries can solve the problem," Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo told the trilateral meeting, hosted by Indonesia.
At least four Indonesian sailors and four Malaysian sailors who were recently kidnapped off ships sailing in those waters remain in captivity at the hands of militant groups. The four Malaysians were being held by the Abu Sayyaf Group, but the Indonesians were hostages of a different group, Jokowi said, according to a news release issued by his cabinet.
"For sure, we already know the location, we already know in which island [the four Indonesians are being held hostage], but again, the faction is different from the other one," Jokowi said without disclosing the location, but adding that his government was building lines of communication to secure their release.
Thursday's meeting took place four days after 10 Indonesian sailors were freed from Abu Sayyaf custody after being kidnapped off their ship last month. But the meeting took on greater urgency after Abu Sayyaf last week executed a Canadian hostage and as the Philippines responded with a military offensive against the group.
Meanwhile, Malaysian officials said Thursday they were expanding their search at sea for four passengers of a boat declared missing Monday off the eastern state of Sabah.
The search for the missing four – a Malaysian, two Spaniards and a Chinese national – expanded  to an area off the town of Kudat covering 3,600 square nautical miles, said First Admiral Mohd Zubil Mat Som who directs the Sabah and Labuan office of the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency.
A learning experience: Indonesian foreign minister
The foreign ministers and military chiefs of the three countries attended the meeting in Yogyakarta.
"We learned from the intensive cooperation and communication of the three countries in the effort to release the 10 Indonesian crew members who were taken hostage," Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi told a news conference following the meeting.
"This meeting proves the level of commitment of Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines to ensure peace, stability, and security in the region."
Malaysian Foreign Minister Anifah Aman and Philippine Foreign Affairs Secretary Jose Rene D. Almendras, who stood alongside their Indonesian counterpart, echoed her words.
"Malaysia is committed to take all necessary steps to resolve this problem through cooperation with Indonesia and the Philippines," Aman told reporters.
The joint declaration recognized "the growing security challenges, such as those arising from armed robbery against ships, kidnapping, transnational crimes, and terrorism in the region" – particularly in the seas separating the three countries.
The three governments also "deplored the abduction of innocent civilians by armed groups in the vicinity" that have included nationals of the three countries.
"In this context, they underscored the importance of protecting the lives, well-being, and rights of their nationals in accordance with international laws, and respective domestic laws and regulations," the declaration said.
Late last month, Luhut Binsar Panjaitan, Indonesia's coordinating minister for political, legal and security affairs, warned that the waters off the southern Philippines could become "the new Somalia" unless three countries cooperated through joint security measures such as coordinated maritime patrols.
At Thursday's news conference, Retno highlighted the economic importance of the three countries working together to safeguard the sea lanes. Fifty-five million metric tons of goods and more than 18 million people pass annually along routes in the Sulu and Celebes seas, reports quoted her as saying.
The declaration went on to say that the governments also "expressed concerns that these security challenges also undermine the confidence in trade and commerce, particularly the movement of commercial shipping, goods, and people, in the maritime areas of common concern ... which in turn can adversely affect the economic activities and welfare of peoples in the surrounding areas."
The document did not specify when the three neighbors would mount joint patrols or set up hotlines to facilitate three-way communication in emergencies or hijackings at sea.
But the neighbors agreed to share intelligence and information through a "focal point" and "render immediate assistance for the safety of people and ships in distress within the maritime areas of common concern," according to the declaration.
Hata Wahiri in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- Activists pressing for a full accounting of the killings in Indonesia in 1965-66 on Monday handed the government a list of 122 mass graves, asking that the sites and witnesses to those deaths be protected.
The list delivered by the Foundation for the Research of 1965/66 Massacre (YPKP 65) included sites in Java and Sumatra but not other regions where killings occurred, such as Bali, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, East Nusa Tenggara and West Nusa Tenggara.
"YPKP 65 officially handed over a summary of records of mass graves that exist in Indonesia. We have found 122 mass graves and believe they contain 1,999 bodies. These mass graves are located in Sumatra and Java," said Bedjo Untung, head of YPKP 65.
The handover took place in a meeting with top security minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan. In late April, he demanded that civil society groups reveal the locations of alleged mass graves so that the number of people killed in the anti-communist purge could be confirmed.
"All this time, for decades, we have been force-fed the information that several hundred people died. Yet until now we have not seen one mass grave," Luhut told reporters at the time.
Confession session
In October 1965, following an attempted military coup in which six generals were killed, the Indonesian government gave free rein to soldiers and civilian militias to kill anyone they considered a communist.
At least 500,000 people died over the next few months, activists say. The victims included members of the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), ethnic Chinese, trade unionists, teachers, activists, and artists, according to Human Rights Watch.
Last month, in an unprecedented move, the government hosted a two-day seminar in which people involved in the purges were invited to speak about their experiences.
Activists campaigning for victim rehabilitation and compensation dismissed the event as a mere "confession session."
NGOs involved in collecting data on the killings initially declined to disclose the locations of graves, saying the government should first guarantee legal protection of the sites and people who know about them.
Still under surveillance
In the meeting Monday, Luhut guaranteed that security, according to Bedjo of YPKP 65.
"'This is a great country and therefore safety will be guaranteed. I will order it and telephone military command,'" he quoted Luhut, who is coordinating minister for politics, legal, and security affairs, as saying.
Bedjo urged the government to guard the graves from being destroyed by those who would prevent a full accounting of the tragedy that unfolded during the transition between Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, and Suharto, its second.
"I requested that YPKP 65 and witnesses from both sides be guaranteed safety in order to show the mass graves," Bedjo said.
Some members of his victims' organization in Central Java are still being monitored as they carry out their daily activities, he added.
Team formed
Luhut said the meeting with YPKP was a starting point for clarifying data for the purposes of reconcilation.
"We already formed a team at this ministry that is gathering information abut the mass graves. I'm not convinced the tally of victims will reach 200,000," he told BenarNews.
Asked if the investigation could lead to legal proceedings, he answered: "We'll wait for the outcome of the investigation. The spirit of this is reconciliation. Let's forget the past and walk forward together towards the future."
He said the team staffed by members of his ministry and the national human rights commission, Komnas HAM, would go to Pati and Wonosobo in Central Java to take samples, then proceed to other locations.
Asked if he would request the United States to open its files pertaining to the atrocities 50 years ago, Luhut said he would gladly receive any evidence shared with his government.
He further said he did not agree with discrimination against descendants of former PKI members, who for years have been subject to social stigmatization and denied government jobs.
"In my opinion, this is no longer relevant currently. It is unjust that the grandchildren still have to bear responsibilitiy for what their parents or grandparents did."
Human rights activist Reza Muharam, who participated in the meeting, said he hoped the truth of 1965-66 could finally be told.
"Komnas HAM has data, the Indonesian military has data, history institutes also have data on victims.  I hope the truth-seeking institutions look at all this data so that the number of victims can be clarified," Reza said.


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BENARNEWS- Fifteen drug convicts on death row, including 10 foreigners, will face firing squads at an unspecified date in mid May, a spokesman for Central Java police told BenarNews on Tuesday.
The executions would be the first since eight mostly foreign drug convicts were executed in April 2015 amid a diplomatic uproar involving Indonesia, Australia and Brazil.
The executions would also be third round carried out under the administration of President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo since he took office in October 2014.
Officials from Joko's administration could not be reached on Tuesday for confirmation about the new round of executions.
The 15 convicts include four Chinese nationals, two Nigerians, two Senegalese, one Pakistani and a citizen of Zimbabwe, Central Java Police spokesman Aloysius Liliek Darmanto said.
"Five are Indonesian citizens while 10 are foreigners," Liliek told BenarNews.
"The Indonesians are four men and one woman," he said, declining to name all 15 convicts.
Central Java Police have 180 personnel prepared to serve as members of firing squads, he added.
"However, the executioners have not been dispatched to Nusakambangan as they still wait for instructions from the attorney general," Liliek said, referring to a penal island off the southern coast of Central Java that is home to Indonesia's highest security prison.
Eight drug convicts, including two Australians, a Brazilian and two Nigerians, were put to death there on April 29, 2015.  Personnel were sent to the island about 72 hours before the executions.
On Jan. 18, 2015, six other drug convicts were executed in Boyolali, Central Java.
If the Nusakambangan procedure is followed, security will be tightened around the Wijaya Pier at Cilacap port, the closest port to the island.
Transferred to Nusakambangan
Over the past two weeks, four drug convicts on death row were transferred to Nusakambangan, but the prison's coordinator said he did not know if the transfers were related to possible executions.
"All are under the authority of the attorney general, our duty is only to accommodate," Abdul Haris told BenarNews.
Indonesian Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo could not be reached for comment.
Previously, he told reporters that the government did not want to release specific details about the executions to avoid violent protests.
Following the April 2015 executions, the Jokowi administration was criticized by Australia and Brazil for carrying them out.
Australia recalled its ambassador to Indonesia after two of its citizens, Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran, were among the eight who were shot.
'Not the answer'
The Jakarta Post in January quoted the attorney general as saying that the death sentences were needed against drug offenders as "shock therapy against serious crime."
Jokowi used a similar phrase in December 2014 to describe executions in combating drug offenses.
Human rights groups in Indonesia, however, are protesting the possible executions.
Al Araf, the director of Imparsial, a Jakarta -based rights group, said Jokowi had failed in his electoral campaign promise known as Nawa Cita (nine priorities for a better Indonesia).
"Nawa Cita focuses on the respect of human rights. If the execution is conducted, it means the government is not consistent," he told BenarNews.

"In my opinion, the death penalty should be removed completely. Why don't we encourage a more civilized law? The law is supposed to humanize people and correct mistakes," he added.
Meanwhile, Haris Azhar, the coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS), said Indonesia's policy of capital punishment needed to be re-examined.
"Drug crimes involve a lot of people. Punishments cannot be imposed on one or two people who get caught," Haris told BenarNews.
He said the government should reveal large networks behind drug trafficking in Indonesia, no matter who is exposed.
Haris's colleague, Puri Kencana Putri, said executions had no deterrent effect or effect in reducing drug-related crimes. Data from the National Narcotics Agency in 2015 said that the number of drug addicts increased to 5.9 million people from the previous year.
"That's the proof," she told BenarNews . "The death penalty is not the answer. It should be abolished."
Arie Firdaus in Jakarta contributes in this story.


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BENARNEWS- Four sailors from Indonesia who were held hostage for almost a month by an armed group in the southern Philippines were freed Wednesday, Indonesian officials said.
The release of the four followed the May 1 freeing of 10 other Indonesian sailors who were taken captive by a different group based in the southern Philippines, the Islamic militant group Abu Sayyaf.
In both instances, Indonesian officials did not comment on whether a ransom had been paid to release the seamen.
The release of the four sailors came after negotiations by Indonesian and Philippine officials who met clandestinely and that involved help from Nur Misuari, the founder of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), an official at Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) told BenarNews.
"The group who held the four crew members hostages was different from the previous one, but they know each other. A ransom was requested but it was unclear how much," BNPT staff analyst Wawan Purwanto said.
At a press conference in Jakarta, Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo announced the news of the release of the four sailors.
"Gratitude to God that, finally, [the] four Indonesian citizens were released. All four are in good health," Jokowi told reporters at the State Palace.
He praised the Philippine government for cooperating with Indonesia to secure the release of the four sailors. Philippine authorities had custody of the four and promised to repatriate them soon, the president said.
"I'm grateful that Indonesia's initiative in organizing a trilateral meeting in Jakarta shows its result. This is one of the implementations from the spirit of the meeting," Jokowi said, referring to a meeting on May 5 between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines.
They agreed then to establish three-way hotlines and coordinate maritime patrols in order to safeguard ships from hijackings in seas that separate the three countries. Four Malaysian sailors remain in Abu Sayyaf custody after being abducted last month from a ship sailing between the East Malaysia state of Sabah and the southern Philippines.
The four Indonesian sailors were kidnapped from the Indonesian tugboat Cristi when it was hijacked in waters along the Philippines-Malaysia maritime border on April 15. Six other crew members escaped and were rescued by Malaysian police.
Foreign minister mum on details of release
Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi, who joined Jokowi at the press conference, declined to give details about the release.
"We only focus on their safety. According to the Indonesian team, they are in good health," she said, adding that Indonesia was communicating with the Philippines about the sailors' repatriation.
Retno also refused to name the group that detained them.
"It is not important anymore," she said.
Hijacked vessel rescued
The release of the four sailors came within 48 hours of news that the Indonesian navy had rescued 20 crew members and a passenger from a hijacked Singaporean vessel, the "Hai Soon 12," near Borneo on Sunday.
Nine suspected pirates from Indonesia were being investigated and authorities believe that they worked for a transnational syndicate.
"The nine perpetrators were ordered by someone from Singapore to bring the hijacked ship to Timor Leste," said Darwanto, the commander of Indonesian East Region Navy. "The Indonesian Navy will further investigate the networks involved in this case."
The suspected pirates claimed to be fishermen but were lured by the offer of 200 million rupiah (U.S. $15,000) from the syndicate if they brought the tanker loaded with 420 tons of oil to Timor Leste.
Heny Rahayu in Malang, Indonesia contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWS- The family of a man who died while in custody of Indonesia's counterterrorism police is pressing for criminal charges in the case, saying they are not satisfied with the discipline meted out by a police ethics panel.
Relatives told police in Klaten, Central Java, in a 90-minute meeting on Sunday that they believe criminal acts of homicide and assault caused the death of Siyono, 35, who was taken into custody by Densus 88 on March 8 and died three days later.
Police allege that Siyono was the leader of a new offshoot of Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the terrorist group responsible for the 2002 Bali bombing.
Activists with Muhammadiyah, the second largest Muslim group in Indonesia, accompanied Siyono's widow and father as they made their statement to police.
"The family is just now reporting criminal acts, as they were waiting to see how the police would take responsibility for this case," Muhammadiyah official Trisno Raharjo told BenarNews on Monday.
The family sent a letter to National Police chief Badrodin Haiti on April 18 asking him to treat the case as a criminal matter, but there has been no response, he added.
Transferred
In their report to police, family members allege that two members of Densus 88 – identified as Superintendent T and Second Inspector H – caused Siyono's death, and the police force took steps to cover that up, according to Trisno.
When the family retrieved the body, two policewomen handed 100 million rupiah (U.S. $7,486) to Siyono's widow, Suratmi, and asked her to sign a letter saying she would not contest the death, he said.
Further, forensic doctor Arif Wahyono gave a false cause in the death certificate issued on March 11, he said.
The family believes the sanctions handed down by a police ethics panel are insufficient, Trisno said.
"We are asking that everyone who was involved be investigated, including the person giving the orders," he said.
A police commission on ethics and professionalism on May 11 ordered the two Densus 88 members receive a no-confidence demotion, meaning they won't be recommended for further work with Densus 88.
"As punishment, they must apologize to the Police Institution and be transferred out of Densus 88 to another work unit for a minimum of four years," police spokesman Boy Rafli Amar told reporters in Jakarta.
"Both men have apologized, but are appealing the decision of the panel," he added.
Suratmi said the matter should not end with the police ethics panel.
"There was something amiss in the death of my husband. I want justice under Indonesian law," she said.
Blunt trauma
Klaten District Police Chief Faizal confirmed that he had received the report filed by Siyono's family.
"Possibly the handling of this will be transferred to police headquarters," he said, without elaborating.
Siyono was buried in a cemetery in his home town before dawn on March 13, but his corpse was disinterred for autopsy on April 3.
The autopsy found that he had suffered six broken ribs and a fractured sternum caused by blunt trauma to the chest cavity that affected heart tissue, causing his death.
That contradicted earlier police statements that Siyono had died from bleeding in his head after fighting with his guard in a moving vehicle.
A forensic team headed by doctor Gatot Suharto did find a head wound, but said it did not bleed or cause his death.
Moreover, forensic evidence suggested that Siyono did not resist the assault, as there were no wounds on his body typically incurred through self-defense.


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BENARNEWS- The 11 men who boarded the Indonesian tugboat Brahma 12 in southern Philippine waters on that Saturday afternoon in late March wore Filipino military uniforms, sailor Bayu Oktavianto told BenarNews.
He and his crewmates soon realized that they were not dealing with Philippine soldiers, but with members of the Abu Sayyaf Group, an Islamic militant group based in the southern Philippines.
"Once they boarded our ship, they immediately tied us with ropes as they had only five pairs of handcuffs," Bayu, a 23-year-old resident of Central Java province said as he recounted his 36-day ordeal along with nine shipmates in the custody of Abu Sayyaf, a group reputed for taking foreigners hostage and killing some of their captives.
Abu Sayyaf took the 10 Indonesian sailors hostage in the waters of Tawi-Tawi province on March 26 and freed them on May 1. During that period, however, the group executed a Canadian hostage, 68-year-old John Ridsdel, after it said that its ransom demands had not been met.
Taken to an island
Bayu showed no fear as he sat at his home in Mendak, Central Java, telling the story of his captivity.
On the afternoon of March 26, Mahmud, a shipmate from Kalimantan province, suggested to the others that they all claim to be married with children and that the non-Muslims in their group try to pass themselves off as Muslims, said Bayu who is single.
At first the militants did not believe that the Indonesians were all Muslims, and made each of them recite two sentences of syahadat, the Muslim creed. Three of the crew members who were Christians, Peter Barahama, Peti Alvarez and Julian Philips, could not pass the test.
"Initially they just wanted to take three of us, but we agreed that if they wanted to get us, they would have to take all of us," Bayu said.
By his account the kidnappers used the tugboat to take the crew to an unidentified island, arriving at about 2 a.m. the next day. The Brahma 12 was left floating in the sea without the crew, after all valuables were taken.
On the island, dozens of men armed with weapons and who wore military uniforms were waiting. Bayu said he saw hundreds of militants dressed in fatigues and talking in Indonesian, Malay, English and Tagalog.
'We were not their target'
One of the militants told them that they should not have been taken hostage, according to Bayu.
"But since they already had snatched the 10 crew members, they needed to complete the mission," he said.
Dozens of bamboo houses with roofs made of coconut leaves were hidden in the island's forest. Bayu and the others were confined to a long building with several rooms, including bathrooms.
He said he saw no women, children or other prisoners.
While in captivity, the crew sat as militants guarded them. They ate once or twice a day.
"When the food was ready, we were called to join them," Bayu said.
Sometimes their captors threatened them by sticking a gun to their faces, but there was no physical abuse. In fact, the handcuffs and ropes were removed and militants told them they would be released someday.
"The reason is because we are Indonesians. Their Quran teacher is from Indonesia and we were not their target," said Bayu, who believes that some of the militants were fellow Indonesians.
The militants were diligent in conducting the five-time daily prayers and spending much of their time reading the Quran, he recalled. He and his colleagues were invited to join in the prayers and attend Quran lessons.
"I usually was not on time in performing salat. Now I do it on time and I read the Quran too," said Bayu.
Freedom
Later on during his captivity, a bespectacled bald man met Bayu and his colleagues to tell them they soon would be released. That night, a member of the Abu Sayyaf also said that a ransom would be paid soon.
The next morning, May 1, all 10 crew members were taken to the island of Sulu where the militants told them they were free.
"One of them told me that we had to leave immediately. If we are one minute late, we could die," Bayu said, recalling how he saw several militants carrying sacks which, he believed, contained ransom money.
A waiting truck delivered the 10 to the home of the governor of Sulu, Abdusakur Tan, where they were instructed to shower and change clothes before being fed. The 10 men were famished, and chose to eat first.
After greeting the sailors in Jakarta following their release, Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno Marsudi said the government had paid no ransom to secure the release. She said that their freedom had been secured through diplomatic efforts.
Coordinating Minister for Political, Law and Security Affairs, Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan told reporters that the government remained committed to not paying ransoms for hostages.
On April 19, the tugboat's owner had agreed to pay for their release, but has since not commented on whether it paid the 50 million Philippine pesos (U.S. $1.07 million) demanded by Abu Sayyaf.
On May 11, the day the Indonesian government announced that four other Indonesian sailors had been freed from captivity by another armed group in the southern Philippines, Retno declined to give details about their release.
As for Bayu, he is savoring his regained freedom but said he planned to return to his job as a sailor after celebrating the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr on July 6.
His mother, Rahayu, said that she would let her son return to the sea despite concerns about his safety.
"Any kind of work definitely has its own risk," she told BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- A Malay-language Islamic State propaganda video circulating this week features old footage and several IS figures who are already dead, analysts told BenarNews.
The 15-minute, 48-second video shows Southeast Asian children being drilled on extremist ideology, trained to use weapons, and incited into burning what appear to be Indonesian and Malaysian passports, according to a copy released by the Indonesian media outlet Tribunnews.
Wawan Purwanto, a staff expert with Indonesia's National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT), said the government was aware of the video featuring IS's Southeast Asian wing, Khatibah Nusantara.
"It's just another video uploaded for propaganda purposes, being played again," he told BenarNews on Thursday.
"This is political propaganda, not something real. Maybe they do train children over there, but this was for public consumption."
The video is an old one uploaded again in recent days, according to Sidney Jones, a terrorism and human rights expert who heads the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC).
"It's an old video, shot in early 2015. Several of the people in it are dead," she told BenarNews.
They include a former policeman from Jambi, Sumatra, who is seen drinking tea in the video. The man was killed on June 29, 2015, according to Jones.
"I think the fact that this is an old video could be a sign of weakness, that they can't produce new propaganda now, maybe because of the exigencies of war," she said.
About 1,000 Southeast Asians had traveled to Syria and Iraq to join IS by the end of 2015, according to the U.S. State Department.
Jones said the Indonesia government could use the material for "reverse propaganda" to dissuade people from joining IS.
"They use small children, incite small children, teach them to kill," she said.
Aged five to 13
Ridlwan Habib, a counterterrorism expert at the University of Indonesia,  said the 23 children seen in the video range in age from 5 to 13.
"There are some Malaysian and Philippines children. The rest are Indonesian. They are the children of Indonesian citizens who went there," he said.
He said the government had two options to tackle the problem: blocking Indonesians of any age who joined IS abroad from returning home; or attempting to rescue the children from Syria and Iraq. The second would be difficult, he added.
According to BNPT, 800 Indonesians had joined IS through September 2015, of whom 50 had died and 100 had already returned home.
In February 2016, Indonesian Presidency Joko "Jokowi" Widodo put the number of citizens who had gone to Syria at 329 – a small number, he said, compared with Indonesia's population of 252 million.
'Our guard is up'
At the end of the video, a Malaysian militant leads the passport burning and threatens that the group will send its soldiers back to the Malay Archipelago to eradicate non-believers.
Contacted by BenarNews, Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, the head of the counter-terrorism unit of the Royal Malaysia Police, confirmed that the man in the video was Zainuri Kamaruddin and said he was still alive.
Zainuri is a former leader of Kumpulan Mujahiddin Malaysia (KMM), who trained in Afghanistan and was jailed in Malaysia for 10 years for possession of firearms, according to Utusan Malaysia, a Malaysian media site. Zainuri went to Syria in 2014.
In earlier comments to the New Straits Times newspaper, Ayob said his department knew which Malaysian nationals were in Syria. He went on give names, ages and hometowns of three other Malaysians who appear in the video.
Malaysia has foiled nine planned attacks by IS members on its soil since 2013 and is still on high alert, he added.
"The increasing trend in statistics involving IS in the region is an indication of the increasing strength in their footing in the region," he told the paper.
"Our guard is up ... there is the northern border that is so vast, the influence from IS alliances in southern Philippines, and possible lone-wolf attacks ... IS supporters here are trying to establish contact with IS elements from areas like southern Philippines."
'Fond of exploiting children'
According to Mohd. Azizuddin Mohd. Sani, a visiting professor in political science at Universiti Utara Malaysia, Khatibah Nusantara released the video out of weakness.
"KN is now facing problems implementing its agenda and recruiting new fighters in Malaysia. To date IS has not able to threaten Malaysia because police have been increasingly aggressive."
Since 2013, 179 suspected IS sympathizers have been arrested in Malaysia, and 55 have been prosecuted, according to police statistics.
About 73 Malaysians are believed to have traveled to Syria or Iraq to join the group; at least 19 of them have died, officials said.
P. Sundramoorthy, a professor of criminology at Universiti Sains Malaysia, called the video a desperate measure to attract followers.
"The group is indeed fond of exploiting children in videos as they want to attract 'sympathizers and empathizers' in Malaysia. This is part of their desperate measures to accelerate their process of indoctrination [so] that more Malaysians who sympathize with their cause will come forward," he told BenarNews.
Hata Wahari and S. Adie Zul in Kuala Lumpur contributed to this report.


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BENARNEWSNearly 14 years later, Bali bomb victim Chusnul Chotimah says she's still waiting for the Indonesian government to help pay for surgery and drugs needed to treat her injuries from the attack.
"Do I have to come to Jakarta and sleep in front of the State Palace only to attract the president's attention? If they refuse to help, I would request for their help to just euthanize me. I have no power to live like this anymore," Chusnul told BenarNews.
Chusnul was badly burned and disfigured in one of two bombings on Bali on Oct. 12, 2002, and has shrapnel embedded in one of her legs. Jemaah Islamiyah, a militant group linked with al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility for the twin attacks in Bali's Kuta tourist district that killed 202 people.
Chusnul, who was living in Bali at the time, was buying food with a friend in Legian Street when a bomb went off inside Paddy's Bar, some 100 meters (328 feet) away.
Chusnul has since returned to her home village of Sidoarjo, in East Java province, where she earns a meager living selling vegetables.
Some money from a Balinese NGO, which helped her to pay for an operation in Australia soon after the attack, ran out long ago and she is deeply indebted to a money lender who loaned her cash for other medical treatments, Chusnul said.
"Sixty percent of my body suffered burn injuries, including my face," she said in a phone interview.
"Now my debt has reached Rp. 128 million [U.S. $9,370]."
But Chusnul is not alone, according to Dwi Welasih, an activist with the Indonesian Survivor Foundation (YPI), an NGO that supports victims of terrorist attacks.
"Besides Chusnul, there are many others in need of medical treatment. We have tried to talk to the Ministry of Health, but still have had no further response," Dwi, who was injured in the deadly bombing of the Marriott Hotel in Jakarta in 2003, told BenarNews.
"I feel sad because we can't do much about it. The organization has sought assistance from the Witness and Victim Protection Agency (LPSK), but the procedures are tight, so we still don't see any aid provided for the victims," Dwi added.
'Where is the money?'
Chusnul has sent three letters to Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, but said she was still waiting for help from his administration. Four months ago, an official from the State Secretary's office acknowledged one of the letters and promised that the government would aid her, she said.
According to Chusnul's son, Musoffa Adha, 24, his mother has yet to receive Rp. 20 million (U.S. $1,467) allocated by the government to injured Indonesian survivors of the Bali attack, via the nation's hospital system.
"Where is the money my mother supposedly received? When my father demanded an answer from the hospital, they declined, saying they have no idea about it," Musoffa told BenarNews.
"My goal is to bring about another surgery for my mother because she always feels pain in her injured leg. With the rest of the money collected, we have planned to start a food stall, so she doesn't have to sell vegetables around the village anymore," he added.
Apart from feeling humiliated when people in the village ask her about the scars on her face, Chusnul said some conservative Muslim residents had come to look down on her and her family because they had lived in Bali, considered a hive of immorality and hedonistic activity.
"Several of my friends blamed my mother for working in a tourism island like Bali, though she earned money in a halal way for the sake of her children," Musoffa said.
No special institution
Responding to questions about Chusnul's case, Oscar Primadi, a spokesman for Indonesia's Health Ministry, told BenarNews on May 20 that he had not been informed about it.
He said he would check into her case, adding that the she could also claim public health services and benefits through the Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS), which is open to all Indonesians.
Ahmad Yunianto, chairman of the Crisis Management Centre at the ministry, explained that no special institution had been established in Indonesia to assist victims of terrorist attacks.
"It should be part of the obligations of [every] local government's health or social agency, particularly in giving assistance for an individual and their longtime medical treatment," he told BenarNews.


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BENARNEWS- Under a controversial new presidential decree in Indonesia, convicted rapists of children can be put to death or punished through chemical castration.
Responding to public outrage over last month's gang rape and killing in Sumatra of a 14-year-old girl by a group of 14 males that included at least seven minors, President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo on Wednesday issued a regulation in lieu of law establishing such harsher penalties for those sex-based crimes, including rapes of adults.
The new regulation also stipulates that convicted rapists can have microchips implanted in their bodies to monitor their whereabouts after they serve out their prison sentences. It also calls for publication of their identities as sexual predators.
"Extraordinary crimes need to be handled in extraordinary ways," Jokowi said, declaring sexual offenses against children as extraordinary crimes, according to information posted on the Indonesian Cabinet Secretary's website.
"It is hoped that the new regulation can provide a deterrent effect for potential violators so the number of sexual crimes against children decreases," Jokowi told reporters in the State Palace.
The regulation also strengthens an existing child protection law by increasing the minimum prison sentence from three years to 10 years. Apart from the possibility of capital punishment or chemical castration, the regulation also adds the possibility of a life sentence for offenders.
The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) echoed the president's words.
"I think it will have a deterrent effect. A bit radical, but this shows that the state is there to protect children from sexual predators," commission representative Erlinda told BenarNews on Thursday.
'Cruel, inhuman punishment'
However, Indonesian human rights advocacy groups are challenging the regulation.
While they agree on harsher punishments for rapists, they view castrating or executing convicted child molesters and rapists as too extreme.
"It's degrading," Maneger Nasution, a member of the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM), told BenarNews. "A penalty, while it is supposed to be a harsh punishment, should make people become better."
And according to Mariana Aminuddin, a member of the National Commission of Violence against Women (Komnas Perempuan), the regulation won't change the mentality of sex offenders.
"It is only to scare people by using cruel, inhuman punishment," Mariana told BenarNews. "In fact, since 1998, the government has ratified the convention against torture and other cruel, and inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Now, [the government] has done the contrary."
Komnas Perempuan claims that 70 percent of perpetrators of violence against children and women are family members or close to the victims. Through 2015, it recorded 321,752 reported cases of sexual abuse, which averaged 881 cases per day.
Not retroactive
The new regulation will not apply to those convicted of child molestation or rape before May 25, including the 14 males in the Sumatra gang-rape case and murder who have already been convicted, according to Law and Human Rights Minister Yasoona Laoli.
The regulation also will not apply to underage suspects who are subject to Indonesia's Juvenile Criminal Justice System Law, he said.
The government will soon send the regulation to the House of Representatives.
"We hope our colleagues will agree with the president and pass it into a law," the minister told reporters.
Soebagyo Firman, chairman of the legislation division of the House of Representatives, told BenarNews that it had not yet received a copy of the regulation.
"Once we receive it, we will discuss it to determine whether the regulation is complete or not," he said.


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BENARNEWS- After officers broke up demonstrations and detained scores of protesters, police in eastern Indonesia's Papua and West Papua provinces said Tuesday they would prevent pro-independence activists from rallying again.
"Their aspiration is for Papua independence. [W]e told them that we will never accommodate that kind of aspiration," Jeremias Rontini, the superintendent of police in the Papuan capital Jayapura, told BenarNews, adding that his officers would block locals from holding future rallies for independence from Indonesia.
Laurenzus Kadepa, a local lawmaker and member of the Papuan Legislative Council (DPRP) who attended peaceful rallies organized in the region by the West Papua National Committee (KNPB), said demonstrators should be allowed to voice their support for Papuan independence.
On Tuesday, police reportedly prevented a crowd from marching from a local housing complex to the DPRP.
"Police should know that DPRP belongs to the people, a home for everybody without exception," Laurenzus told BenarNews.
As many as 336 demonstrators were detained in Sentani and Wamena – two towns in Papua – as well as in Manado, in North Sulawesi province, while demonstrating in favor of the release of political prisoners in Papua, the Associated Press reported.
A low-level secessionist movement has simmered in Papua and West Papua, Indonesia's easternmost provinces, which are among its poorest and least developed and which became part of Indonesia in 1969.
On May 2, some 1,700 supporters of the West Papua National Committee were arrested while taking part in pro-independence rallies at several locations in Papua. They were released after being questioned by police.
These demonstrations were broken up although Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo had pledged to solve human rights abuses allegedly carried out in the region by the Indonesian security services and to bring prosperity to the people of Papua.
Since he took office in October 2014, Jokowi has made multiple visits to Papua and ordered the release of some political prisoners.
Blocked
According to Ones Suhuniap, the general secretary of the KNPB, police on Tuesday arrested some of its members for planning peaceful demonstrations to support the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP).
"Police blocked us in a housing complex in Waena. There were five military trucks and three military patrol cars. Also, there were 15 police trucks and five police cars. Around 100 police and mobile brigade blocked our way to demonstrate," Ones told BenarNews.
Police arrested 33 KNPB members in Sentani, a town near Jayapura, before the rally began, he said.
"Around 61 people were arrested in Wamena. Some of them were arrested yesterday, when they distributed fliers informing about the rally," Ones said.
In Jakarta, the director of the Indonesian Legal Aid Institute claimed that police had denied organizers of the KNPB rallied permits for staging them.
"Police's decision not to give permit for a peaceful rally is uncommon. This proves that police or government discriminate against Papuans," Alghiffari Aqsa told BenarNews, adding that Indonesia's constitution guaranteed the right of people to associate, to organize and to express opinions.


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BENARNEWS- Former military leaders and Islamic groups have united around what they say is a communist resurgence in Indonesia.
An unprecedented government effort to explore national reconciliation over anti-communist purges 50 years ago is encouraging that rebirth, they say.
"There are people who don't want Indonesia to be united and strong," Kiki Syahnakri, the former army deputy chief of staff, told a seminar on "the threat of a resurrected PKI" – the acronym for the long-defunct and illegal Communist Party of Indonesia.
"They try to make Indonesia unstable by bringing up the issue of human rights," he told journalists at the two-day event, which got under way in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Groups attending the event included Ansor, the youth wing of the moderate Islamic organization Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), which took an active role in purges in East Java back in the mid-1960s; and the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), which is known for raiding nightclubs and bars during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan.
"It's nonsense when people say the PKI is not rising, that they have disappeared. PKI will rise again, they will smash us if we don't line up [to face them]," FPI leader Habib Rizieq Shihab said at the symposium, according to Indonesian media outlet Detik.
Another retired general who spoke Wednesday said the government should never apologize – and no reconciliation was necessary.
"If we apologize, we endorse the treason," said Try Sutrisno, who served as vice president to former president Suharto from 1993 to 1998, and is father-in-law of the current Defense Minister Ryamizard Ryacudu.
"We've received the PKI members as ordinary citizens. In 2016, all of its sympathizers and descendants have the right to enjoy their life, politically, economically, socially, culturally. Even some became members or leaders in state agencies," he said.
Rival symposiums
The symposium comes on the heels of one staged by President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo's government in April, titled "Dissecting the Tragedy of 1965: A Historical Approach."
That gathering brought together victims and state officials to discuss the purges that unfolded during the transition between Sukarno, Indonesia's first president, and Suharto, its second.
In October 1965, following an attempted military coup in which six generals were killed, the Indonesian government gave free rein to soldiers and civilian militias to kill anyone they considered a communist.
At least 500,000 people died over the next few months, activists say, including PKI members, ethnic Chinese Indonesians, trade unionists, teachers, activists, and artists.
Trauma and stigma lingered for relatives of those killed, who for decades were ineligible for civil servant jobs.
In April, Coordinating Minister for Political, Legal and Security Affairs Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan challenged civil society groups to reveal the locations of alleged mass graves so that the number of people killed could be confirmed.
In May, activists handed the government a list of 122 mass graves, asking that the sites and witnesses to those deaths be protected.
Recommendations welcomed
Rights activists reacted negatively to the anti-communism symposium.
"In the context of reconciliation, this symposium does not contribute anything," Yati Andriyani, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS), told BenarNews.
The event showed that some groups were not prepared for reconciliation, National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) member Siti Noor Laila said.
"Those generals such as Kiki Syahnakri who organized this symposium – they were invited to the previous event but did not want to attend," Siti said.
Those who oppose reconciliation are wrongly equating it with defense of communism, she said.
"The reality is not about the reconciliation of PKI with other parties. There were crimes against humanity post 1965, and that's what we want to reconcile," she said.
Amid rising nervousness about communism in the wake of the April symposium, security officials have arrested people suspected of selling books or T-shirts with leftist symbols. Discussions and film screening related to the events of 1965-66 have been closed down.
On Tuesday, police arrested two men in Sukabumi, West Java, for selling T-shirts with the image of a hammer and sickle, the state-run Antara news agency reported.
Contacted by BenarNews, presidential spokesman Johan Budi said the government would study any recommendation issued by the anti-communism symposium.
"We will analyze them, as was done with the recommendations from the previous symposium," he said.
"The decision on how to resolve the 1965 tragedy will be based on all recommendations. The president will consider them all," Johan added.
The April symposium committee submitted recommendations to the government on May 18, but to date it has not disclosed what those were.


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BENARNEWS- Tens of millions of Muslims in Indonesia, the world's largest Islamic nation, and neighboring Malaysia began their Ramadan fast on Monday, while their religious brethren in Bangladesh, India and Thailand eagerly anticipated the holy month to start the following day.
"Mutual respect is important. We must show the world that Muslims are strong and more tolerant. Do not let a civil war happen like some countries in the Middle East," Said Aqil Siradj, chairman of Nahdlatul Ulama, one of Indonesia's most influential Islamic organizations, told BenarNews.
Fasting is one of the five mandatory duties of all Muslims. Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, commemorates the first revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad.
"The basic lesson of Ramadan is to make people practice restraint. A hungry Muslim will not eat until Allah gives him permission through the Maghrib azaan (prayer call)," Maulana Farid Uddin Masud, an Islamic scholar in Bangladesh, told BenarNews.
Fasting also gives rich people a sense of pain of hunger, he said.
"Just practicing restraint, we the human being can get rid of many evils and problems. Ramadan helps people develop the culture of tolerance," Masud added.
In Bangladesh, the moon was in the right spot on Monday, heralding the start of Ramadan the next day.
"The moon has been seen, so the holy month of Ramadan starts Tuesday," Bangladesh Religious Affairs Minister Motior Rahman told BenarNews.
Leaders give Ramadan blessings
Across Southeast Asia, national leaders including Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak and Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-o-cha sent well wishes for Ramadan to their Muslim constituents.
Najib urged Malaysian Muslims to enhance their contributions and services to those who need help during the holy month.
Malaysia, where about 60 percent of the population is Muslim, will have a slight change in its observance of Ramadan this year, with parliamentary by-elections set for June 18.
Voters in Sungai Besar, Selangor state, and in Kuala Kangsar, Perak state, then will be casting votes to replace two MPs representing those constituencies who were killed in a helicopter crash in Sarawak last month.
Prayuth, a Buddhist, offered praise to Thailand's small Muslim minority.
"During Ramadan where Muslims fast, may you all be successful in traditional merit-making, the same way Buddhists practice their belief, in order to bless the families, society and social contribution," the head of the Thai junta said.
However, the eve of Ramadan was marred by reports that at least six people in Thailand's predominantly Muslim and insurgency-stricken Deep South were injured in a separate shootings and bombings in Pattani and Narathiwat provinces.
Solidarity with fasters
In India, whose Muslim population is the second largest in the world next to Indonesia's, common people from across the religious spectrum were looking forward to the start of Ramadan.
"I am a Hindu, but all my workers are Muslim," Anil Jain, a cloth merchant who operates his business near a mosque in the old part of Delhi, told BenarNews.
"From tomorrow onward, my workers will fast, and I will also fast with them on as many days as possible. In the evenings, I like to give them time off, or encourage them to break their fast here at the shop. This is a tradition we have followed for many years."


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian judges Wednesday sent three men to prison for involvement with terrorist groups, while three people in neighboring Malaysia were charged with establishing links with the extremist group Islamic State (IS).
Yuskarman, a 32-year-old Indonesian man, was sentenced Wednesday to four years and eight months for being involved in a plot to bomb a Christian church, a Buddhist monastery and a police station in his hometown of Solo, Central Java, using money provided by Bahrun Naim, a senior Indonesian member of IS based in Syria, the East Jakarta District Court heard.
Three other defendants who were convicted for their involvement in the plot – Ibadurrahman, Sugiyanto, and Syarifuddin – will be sentenced on June 15.
"In court testimony, Sugiyanto said the defendant's house was used as a place to store a bomb" intended for use in a terrorism act," head judge Sulung Simanjuntak told the court Wednesday.
Yuskarman and the other men were arrested in Solo in August 2015 before they could execute their plan.
Bahrun Naim became known in Indonesia after IS carried out a terrorist attack in downtown Jakarta that killed eight people, including four suspected IS operatives, on Jan. 14. Police initially named him as the mastermind of the first IS plot carried out in Indonesia.
Bahrun Naim provided money the cell that planned a series of attacks in Solo so it could build bombs, according to Adhe Bhakti, a terrorism expert at the Center for the Study of Radicalization and De-radicalization (PAKAR), a Jakarta think-tank.
"The money was sent via their network. Their plan was to use the bomb to blow up the Market Police Station in Kliwon, a church, a Buddhist monastery in Kepunten" Adhe told BenarNews, referring to areas of Solo. "They were going to do it on Aug. 17, 2015, but were arrested a few days before."
Santoso followers sentenced
Meanwhile, in a separate case heard at the East Jakarta courthouse, two men who were found guilty of links to the Eastern Indonesia Mujahideen (MIT) group were sentenced Wednesday.
Arif Kusnadi (alias Abu Ubait) and Budi Rahmansyah were arrested on suspicion of participating in terrorist training in Poso, Central Sulawesi province, in August 2015. Arif was sentenced to six years in jail and Budi received a seven-year sentence.
The MIT, whose leader Santoso has pledged allegiance to IS, is hiding with about two dozen followers in the jungles of Central Sulawesi. About 2,000 members of the Indonesian army and police have been hunting Santoso and his group in a series of joint operations in the mountains of Central Sulawesi since January 2015.
As many as 18 suspected members of the group, including five ethnic Uyghur men have been killed in battles between militants and security forces since January 2015. Another 31 have been arrested – most of them believed to be sympathizers or couriers for the group.
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Arif Kusnadi consults his lawyer at the East Jakarta District Court, June 8, 2016. [Arie Firdaus/BenarNews]
Malaysian suspects charged
In Malaysia on Wednesday, an aircraft mechanic, a car painter and a clerk were charged in three separate courts for terrorism-related offenses, including maintaining links to IS, police said.
The three were among 15 people arrested during a nationwide crackdown on suspected IS members over three days in March.
Aircraft mechanic Nor Hafizy Che Meh, 39, was charged at the Shah Alam Magistrate's Court with two counts of promoting IS membership at his house in Kampung Melayu Subang, Selangor between Dec 2013 and October last year. Nor Hafizy could face up to 30 years in prison if convicted, police said.
In the state of Selangor, car painter Muhammad Aizam Mat Zin, 39, was charged with  possessing three stickers related to IS, found in his home on March 22. He could face a maximum of seven years in prison if convicted, police said.
In the state of Perak, clerk Rafidah Juma'at, 26, was charged with having books and documents related to terrorism at her house in Taman Bistari, Ayer Tawar.
If convicted, she would face a maximum of seven years in prison, according to police.
Caseload set to increase
With the latest sentences in Indonesia, 15 people have been sent to prison for links to the so-called Islamic State.
That number could increase because Densus 88, Indonesia's elite counter-terrorism police unit, has arrested about 40 people following the Jan. 14 terror attack in Jakarta.
In Malaysia, the Home Ministry, citing intelligence sources, claimed that more than 130 Malaysians have tried to join IS in Iraq or Syria. At least 19 Malaysians have been killed while fighting for IS in the Middle East, according to Ayob Khan Mydin Pitchay, chief of the Royal Malaysia Police's counter-terrorist branch.
Since 2013, Malaysian police have arrested 193 suspects linked to IS and 58 have been charged in court, according to police statistics.


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BENARNEWS- The Indonesian government has rejected a call by a Muslim intellectual to block Google and YouTube within the country due to pornographic and violent content.
"Indonesia guarantees freedom of information, unlike China. Maybe they would block it there. It's like trying to kill a mouse by burning the whole house," Ministry of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) spokesman Ismail Cawidu told BenarNews in Jakarta on Wednesday.
On Tuesday, Indonesian Muslim Intellectuals Association (ICMI) Secretary General Jafar Hafsah issued a statement saying that Google and YouTube spread pornographic and violent content.
"If YouTube and Google refuse to control their sites, they deserve to be blocked. [P]ornographic and violent content is on their sites," he said in a press statement.
But ICMI Chairman Jimly Asshiddiqie said that Jafar's statement was personal and did not reflect an official view of ICMI.
Jimly emphasized that Indonesians should not be anti-technology, and that YouTube and Google have contributed greatly to society.
"We as a nation can no longer prohibit the development of technology. We cannot imitate China," he said.
His point was echoed by the ICMI deputy Ilham Habibie, even though he conceded that violent and pornographic content could be accessed through the two social media platforms, he said.
"The benefits of Google and YouTube are greater than the harm. Lots of great content can be obtained from the two sites," he said.
"An initiative called Project Trust Positive is ongoing where a lot of pornographic and violent website content has been successfully blocked in Indonesia," he explained.
Ilham said the best way to tackle the negative effects of the internet is to keep educating people on its benefits and harms.
"We're heading into a country and an economy based on knowledge and innovation, where it requires people with an appropriate level of education," he said.
'Flag' bad content
Meanwhile the head of corporate communications for Google in Indonesia, said that YouTube, which is owned by Google, had a policy of complying with Indonesian regulations to do with sexual content and age-restricted content.
"You can see it at the YouTube Policy Center and Community Guidelines," Jason Tedjasukmana told BenarNews.
Data from the ICT ministry shows that the government has blocked 750,000 links to pornographic content and about 153,000 free porn sites.
Ismail said that while the government continued to block pornographic and violent sites, users keep producing such content.
"Parents have a role in monitoring their children to choose safe sites, using safe search or select kids.youtube.com," he said.
Onno Purbo, an information and technology expert at the Bandung Institute of Technology, said it was almost impossible to force YouTube and Google to block their content.
"Google and YouTube came from the United States where they keep the Internet open and free," he told BenarNews. He pointed out that YouTube has a "flag" option where Internet users can object to content.
"So if there are materials you do not like, you can flag them. When material gets lots of flags, it is blocked by YouTube itself," he said.


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BENARNEWS- Indonesian police said Thursday they had arrested three men suspected of plotting terror attacks in Surabaya, Indonesia's second largest city, and other areas of East Java province during Ramadan.
The three suspects were picked up Wednesday in raids mounted across Surabaya by Densus 88, the police's counterterrorist wing, said National Police spokesperson Boy Rafli Amar.
One of the suspects, identified as Priyo Hadi Purnomo, was believed to be preparing for a suicide bombing mission in Surabaya, Boy told BenarNews.
"One corroborating piece of evidence is the discovery of a number of ropes and switches that allegedly were to be used for detonating himself. Priyo would use the mobile phone to trigger the explosion," Boy said in a phone interview.
The three men were inspired by the Islamic State (IS) extremist group to carry out the attacks targeting public places and government offices in Surabaya in coming weeks, and one of the suspects was linked to Abu Jandal, an influential Indonesian fighting for IS in the Middle East, Agence France-Presse quoted Boy as saying.
"They were influenced by IS on social media," Amar said, according to AFP. "They were inspired by IS leaders' speeches."
Indonesian supporters of IS carried out an attack in downtown Jakarta on Jan. 14 that killed eight people, including all four suspected perpetrators, according to police.
'A quiet and good person'
Boy told BenarNews that Densus 88 seized explosives, guns and ammunition from the house where Priyo lived with his parents, and they found chemicals at the home of a second suspect, identified as Befri Rahmawan Norcahyo (alias Jefri). The third suspect was identified as Feri Novendi.
"After he was arrested, I do not know where he is because police has not told me," Soerjami, Priyo's mother, told BenarNews.
Even though he had previously served a prison sentence on a drug conviction, her son "was always a good and quiet person," Soerjami said, adding that she had not noticed a change in his behavior since he was freed in 2014.
However, the spokesman for national police told a different story, alleging that Priyo had been preparing to take part in a terrorist plot since getting out of prison.
"For two years, Priyo had been looking for targets of his action. He also hung out with people who shared radical views," Boy told Benar.
While in Porong prison, according to Boy, Priyo was recruited by Muhammad Shibghotullah (alias Shibgoh), an inmate from Kalimantan who was arrested in Malaysia in late 2014 when he was about to leave Indonesia to join IS in the Middle East.
Shibgoh was sentenced to two years and eight months years in prison for engaging in a military training in the western Indonesian province of Aceh in 2010.
Priyo and the two other men planned to carry out their plot during Ramadan, which Muslims in Indonesia began observing on Monday, and around the Eid al-Fitr holiday that marks the end of the holy month of fasting, Boy said.
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Yellow police tape seals part of a house in Surabaya, Indonesia, where suspect Priyo Hadi Purnomo lived with his parents, June 9, 2016. (Yovinus Guntur W/BenarNews)
Suspects linked to Neo Jamaah Islamiyah: Expert
According to Al Chaidar, a terrorism expert from Malikussaleh University in Lhokseumawe, the three suspects arrested Wednesday were members of Neo Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), an Indonesian network that has pledged allegiance to IS, and has been planning attacks in several cities in Indonesia, including Surabaya, Yogyakarta, Jakarta and Medan.
"The cities were chosen because they fall under the categories of cosmopolitan, pluralistic ones with many non-Muslims. In their view, the cities are considered sinful and should be burned using bombs," he told BenarNews.
The three arrests took place the same day that an Indonesian man, Yuskarman, was sentenced in Jakarta to four years and eight months for his role in a plot to bomb a Christian church, a Buddhist monastery and a police station in his Solo, Central Java.
Altogether 15 people have now been sent to prison for links to the so-called Islamic State.
That number could increase because Densus 88 arrested about 40 other people following the Jan. 14 terror attack in Jakarta.
As of December 2015, Indonesian officials estimated that approximately 800 Indonesian radicals were fighting in Syria or Iraq, the U.S. State Department said in its "2015 Country Reports on Terrorism," which it released earlier this month.
"Indonesian officials say they have identified 284 Indonesian citizens actively involved in fighting in Iraq and Syria and are investigating an additional 516. They also believe that 52 Indonesian foreign terrorist fighters have died in Syria and estimate that another 60 to 100 have returned to Indonesia," the State Department said.


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