Penal code: an Indonesian blows himself up in protest

A suicide bomber angered by Indonesia's new penal code that bans sex outside of marriage and insulting the president blew himself up at a police station on the main island of Java today (Wednesday), killing one more and injuring 11 people.

Agus Sujatno, 34, an Islamist activist and convicted bomb-maker who was released from prison last year, walked into the Bandung city police station on a motorbike and detonated a bomb as officers lined up for the morning assembly.

Detectives then found 'dozens' of white pieces of paper taped to the attacker's motorbike in protest at the country's controversial new penal code that has been passed on Tuesday, the Daily Mail reported.

West Java Police Chief Suntana, who uses a single name, said a paper taped to Sujatno's motorbike was recovered from the Astana Anyar police station with the words: "The penal code is the law of infidels, let's fight satanic law enforcement."

Indonesia's parliament on Tuesday passed a new penal code banning sex outside marriage and insulting the president and state institutions.

Although there are Sharia-based provisions in the new law, Islamist extremists might have been angered by other articles that could be used to suppress the spread of extremist ideologies, analysts said.

Some Islamist extremists have called for the application of Sharia law in Indonesia, which officially recognizes five religions in addition to Islam.

Sujatno, also known by his pseudonym Abu Muslim, was affiliated with the Islamic State-inspired Jamaah Ansharut Daulah group and was released from prison last year where he was was imprisoned on terrorism charges.

A senior security analyst at Concord Consulting in Jakarta, Todd Elliott, said it was likely the attack had been planned for some time and was a ideological rejection of the new laws of the land.

"While full attention is being paid to some of these Sharia-based penal code provisions and how this indicates the spread of conservative Islam in Indonesia, there are also penal code changes that hardliners would not support,” he said.

"Including the prohibition of any ideology that goes against the state ideology, Pancasila, and which would also include extremist ideology."< /p>

Sujatno had entered the police station on a motorcycle and detonated one of the two bombs he was carrying. The other explosive was safely detonated by the police bomb squad.

Video circulating on social media shows body parts near the damaged police station lobby, which was engulfed in white smoke as people walked out running from the building.

Food vendor Herdi Hardiansyah said he was preparing meals behind the station when a loud bang shocked him.

He saw a police officer, whom he recognized as one of his clients, covered in blood, being transported on a motorbike by two other police officers to a hospital. He later learned that the officer had died. Ten other people and a civilian were injured.

"Suddenly I heard the sound of an explosion...I saw a few policemen come out of the station and they couldn't walk properly", another street vendor, Hanes, says.

National Police Chief General Listyo Prabowo said the attacker was allegedly a member of the militant organization JAD, which has pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group and was responsible for other suicide bombings in Indonesia.

Sujatno was released from the prison island of Nusakambangan last year after serving a four-year sentence for financing terrorism and manufacturing explosives which were used in an attack on a municipal building in 2017 also in Bandung, the capital of West Java province.

Sujatno was still on police 'red' lists of activist convicts after he was released from prison due to his rejection of the government's de-radicalization programme, Prabowo said .

"He was still difficult to talk to him and tended to avoid the (deradicalization) process," Prabowo said.

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