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Seminar calls for law overhaul

Enforcement needs to be improved to deal more effectively with terrorism threats
Seminar calls for law overhaul
Published: June 16, 2011 09:27 AM GMT
Updated: June 16, 2011 10:25 AM GMT

Panelists at a seminar hosted yesterday by the Indonesian Human Rights Monitor criticized the country’s recent efforts to end extremist violence in the country. The seminar addressed the effectiveness of the country’s existing anti-terrorism law and law enforcement’s efforts to curb extremist violence, with some panelists urging a new approach. Ahmad Baso, a member of Indonesia’s National Human Rights Commission, told the roughly 80 attendees of the seminar that law enforcement officials must revise previous strategies to curb terrorism. "The strategy taken by police has failed to overcome terrorism," Baso said, "because police just shoot suspected terrorists." Baso added that efforts to de-radicalize extremist groups have also failed, and that amendments to the anti-terrorism law should be made. "The anti-terrorism law should be revised … by stressing more preventative and controlling measures," he said. Indonesia’s Law No. 15/2003 on Combating Criminal Acts of Terrorism was ratified by former president Megawati Sokarnpputri on April 4, 2003, in the wake of the Bali bombings the previous year that killed more than 200 people. Tubagus Hasanuddin, an Indonesian legislator, told attendees of the seminar that police should focus on preventative measures but added that terrorists have changed their strategies, even resorting to the use of poison to eliminate targets. "They use cyanide. This is very dangerous," Hasanuddin said. Recently, police arested 16 suspected terrorists in Java, Borneo and Sulawesi on suspicion of plotting to kill police with cyanide. Taufik Andrie, a social observer, suggested that fear on the part of police has prevented law enforcement from making progress against extremists. "That is why police choose to shoot them," he said, listing Azahari bin Husin, shot and killed by police in Batu, East Java in 2005, and Noordin Mohammad Top, killed 2009 in central Java, as examples. Andrie said about 50 suspected terrorists have been shot and another 452 arrested by Indonesia’s counter-terrorism squad Special Detachment 88. He further suggested that law enforcement officials have increasingly become targets because of recent efforts to apprehend terrorists.

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