Indonesian law enforcement says a suicide bomber who blew himself up at a police station on the island of Java was angered by the country’s new criminal code.
The nation’s parliament passed a ban on sex outside of marriage and a number of restrictions on speech, including prohibiting insulting the president, on Dec. 6.
West Java Police Chief Suntana told Metro TV that a paper taped to a motorcycle belonging to bomber Agus Sujatno, 34, was recovered at the scene of the blast. The paper bore the message “Criminal code is the law of infidels, let’s fight the satanic law enforcers,” according to The Daily Mail.
At least one officer has died while ten other people have been injured.
Sujanto allegedly entered the police station on his motorbike as officers were lining up. He was carrying two bombs but only detonated one. The other was detonated under the supervision of the bomb squad.
Sujatno is described as an Islamic militant who was previously convicted of bomb-making. A bomb he made was used in a 2017 terrorist attack. He was released from prison in 2021 after serving a four-year sentence and is believed to be affiliated with the Jamaah Ansharut Daulah (JAD), a militant organization with ties to the Islamic State.
“After his release from prison, Sujatno reportedly rejected the government’s deradicalization program, which landed him on the police’s ’red’ list of militant convicts,” reports DW.
The U.S. Department of State says the “ISIS-affiliated” JAD and “its offshoots continued to target police and other symbols of state authority” as the Indonesian government has “applied sustained pressure to detect, disrupt, and degrade terrorist groups operating within its borders and deny them safe haven.”
“While not a member of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, the Indonesian government and Muslim civil society leaders forcefully and repeatedly denounced ISIS and actively promoted the importance of CVE efforts to complement law enforcement CT efforts,” reports the State Department.
Other suicide bombings and attacks in Indonesia have been attributed to the JAD, including attacks at “churches, police stations and venues frequented by foreigners,” per Channel News Asia.
Indonesia is a majority Muslim country where some religious extremists have called for the implementation of sharia law in recent years.
“Though there are sharia-based provisions in the new criminal code ratified by parliament on Tuesday, Islamist hardliners could have been angered by other articles that could be used to crackdown on the propagation of extremist ideologies,” per Reuters.
In addition to Islam, the government officially recognizes five other religions – Hinduism, Catholicism, Protestantism, Confucianism, and Buddhism.
