Indonesians Oppose Terrorism With Courageous Words

By Azis Kurmala Jakarta, Jan 16 (Antara) - On Thursday morning (January 14), two bomb blasts occurred at a Starbucks coffee shop and at a police station in Jalan Thamrin where the Indonesian capital's main office district and business center are located. Two attackers died during the suicide bombings and three others were killed in the exchange of fire with the police. The series of attacks left 24 victims with serious injuries or who died. Of the 24 victims, five police officers had suffered serious injuries, while, two civilians including a foreigner were killed. The incident immediately spread to social media. In response to the Jakarta bombings, the Indonesian people who use the internet directly shared the information and expressed their courage and sympathy through a hashtag on Twitter #Kami Tidak Takut (We Are Not afraid). The hashtag #Kami Tidak Takut, meaning "We Are Not Afraid" topped the Twitter trending topic not only in Indonesia but also worldwide Thursday. Other popular hashtags were #Jakarta Berani (Brave Jakarta), #Pray For Jakarta" and #Safety Check JKT. The hashtag #Kami Tidak Takut has shown the resistance over the perpetrators of Jakarta attack and their group. Some Twitter users uploaded unique memes and delivered the courageous message. The support against terror was also delivered by a Twitter account @float_project. This account uploaded a picture with a strong message "Because we unite terrorism will not win". Another Twitter account @ReneCC uploaded the wise words "You Can Love Hate But You Can Never Hate Love". Twitter noted that there were 820,000 tweets related to the Jakarta bombings. "Firstly, the users shared information as well as expressed solidarity against the terrorists in real time," according to Twitter in a press statement. The peaking of the conversation occurred at 13:28 p.m. local time Thursday with 2,100 tweets per minute, Twitter reported. The government and Indonesian citizens should not be defeated by terror, President Joko Widodo affirmed in response to the Jakarta terror attack. "The state, the nation, and the people should not be defeated by terror. I hope the people would stay calm," the President emphasized. In addition, the head of state has condemned the series of bomb blasts and shootouts. The President has ordered the security apparatus to immediately track down the perpetrators and their networks responsible for the six bomb explosions. Moreover, the Secretary General of the Indonesian Ulemas Council (MUI), Anwar Abbas urged all sides to not link the bombing with Islam or other religions because religions never condone terrorism. With regard to solidarity action, people flocked the location of a series of explosions in Jalan Thamrin. The community condemned the Jakarta bombings. Various elements of the community placed flowers and delivered a speech on the theme "Kami Tidak Takut" (We Are Not Afraid). "We must rise up against the terrorists. If we are afraid, then we fail. But Jakartans are not afraid," Yamin, who was one of society representatives, said. The people sang "Indonesia Raya" to strengthen national identity. General Secretary of PP Muhammadiyah Abdul Mu'thi who participated in the solidarity action also called on Indonesians to face terrorism as a common enemy. "Terrorism is the enemy of the nation, religion and humanity. We are present in this place as a form of sympathy as well as a witness of the inhumanity of terrorists," he said. Two of the five perpetrators behind the bomb blasts in Central Jakarta were recidivists, who were previously involved in cases of terrorism, spokesperson of the National Police, Inspector General Anton Charliyan said earlier. "Two of the alleged offenders are recidivists in cases of terrorism," Charliyan stated here. Nevertheless, Charliyan did not elaborate on the cases of terrorism involving the recidivists. "We are certain that the terrorists who orchestrated the attacks in Jakarta Thursday have links to the ISIS terror group," he affirmed. The National Police's central forensics laboratory (Puslabfor) is analyzing the different weapons and grenades used by the perpetrators of Thursday morning's bomb blasts and shootout near the Sarinah department store at Thamrin Boulevard, Central Jakarta. "We are analyzing the evidence today. We cannot elaborate on the evidence because we should wait for the evaluation results of Puslabfor," National Police Chief General Badrodin Haiti stated here Friday. Speaking in connection with the identity of the perpetrators, Haiti noted that the police had identified the perpetrators of the Jakarta terror attack. Nevertheless, the police, through the Disaster Victim Identification (DVI) team, will confirm the identities of the alleged perpetrators by comparing the Deoxyribo Nucleic Acid (DNA) samples taken from their bodies with those of their family members. "We cannot certainly rely on visual identification. We have urged the DVI to confirm the identities of the bodies," he noted. The head of the National Counter-Terrorism Agency (BNPT), Saud Usman, said the terrorists who launched attacks in Jakarta Thursday had targeted foreigners with revenge as their motive. "They target foreign interests because they are seeking vengeance for the western world's treatment of Islam," he said. Besides foreigners, they also targeted law enforcers, he said, and added that he had informed law enforcement agencies about such an attack much before the actual attack took place. "We had informed that they would conduct an 'orchestra' (attack) and told the security apparatus in the field to be alert because they were indeed going to be targeted," he said.