Has Indonesia’s Deradicalization Program Done Enough to Combat Terrorism?

Sujatno was a repeat offender. First exposed to radical ideas in school, he officially joined the terrorist group Jamaah Ansharut Daulah in 2015. In March 2017, he was sentenced to four years in the high-security Pasir Putih prison for building the bomb used in a suicide attack. However, overcrowding and understaffing meant the prison was far from high security. Sujatno refused to participate in the prison’s deradicalization program or engage in dialogue with officials. Instead, he served his four-year sentence and was released without parole. In December 2022, angered by Indonesia’s new criminal code, Sujatno launched a suicide attack at a police station in Bandung, killing himself and an officer and injuring 10 others.

Sujatno’s case is not an outlier. Between 2002 to 2020, around 100 former terror convicts reportedly reoffended, and those are just the ones that authorities know about. They don’t know how many are spreading their training or ideology under the radar, but at least 11% of all of those released reoffend. The majority of reoffenders are in the community for less than two years before their next run-in with authorities.

This is a failure. Before his release, Sujatno was placed on a red list of militant convicts for his behaviour in prison. After the suicide attack, officials admitted that they were not caught off guard by his relapse and instead lamented that they could not read terrorists’ minds. Even though the executive director of the Jakarta-based Center for Radicalism and Deradicalization Studies, Adhe Bakti, requested that police urgently monitor those on red lists, the combination of overworked officers and limited resources allowed Sujatno to slip through the cracks.

The next few years are critical. They will test the effectiveness of deradicalization programs and post-sentence risk assessments. Will individuals like Patek revert to their old ways, or will they become successful contributors to society like former terror convict Ali Fauzi Manzi?

Ali Fauzi is the youngest brother of Mukhlas, Amrozi and Ali Imron of the Bali bombings. Mukhlas and Amrozi were executed, while Ali Imron is serving a life sentence. Through family and friendship ties, Ali Fauzi joined terror group Jemaah Islamiyyah along with his brothers. He was arrested in the Philippines in 2004 and extradited to Indonesia to serve a three-year sentence. Humane treatment from police and the deradicalization program helped him reform his views. He then founded the Circle of Peace Foundation in 2017, working to help deradicalize former fighters and reconcile with the victims’ families, including those from the Bali bombings. In February, Ali Fauzi received a doctorate in Islamic education for his research on religious moderation for former terrorists. He is focused on bringing necessary reforms to Indonesia’s deradicalization program.

Australia and the US may be just shifting their focus from fighting transnational terrorism in other countries to domestic terrorism, but countries like Indonesia have focused on domestic terrorism for decades, building deradicalization programs and programs to counter violent extremism. Australia continues to improve at this, such as its reassessment of the use of a violent extremism risk assessment, which determines potential court orders for extremists completing prison sentences. Although no system is perfect, countries would do well to share and learn from each other’s experiences.

The Bali bombings brought Indonesia and Australia closer together in the fight against terrorism. During the eighth ‘2+2’ meeting on 9 February, the Australian and Indonesian foreign and defense ministers committed to ‘continued dialogue on the progress of deradicalization programs in the region’.

Perhaps the next chapter of this relationship is for Australia and Indonesia to work together to strengthen deradicalization programs and post-sentence risk assessments to further protect communities from terrorism. These strategies will determine the security landscape of not only Indonesia and the Pacific, but the world.

William Frangia is a second lieutenant in the US Army and a visiting fellow at ASPI. The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of the US Army, the US Department of Defense or the US government. This article is published courtesy of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI).