Clearly these recruiters have supporters among the jailers: “Despite the island’s jails being high-security and despite mobile phones being contraband those who want phones have and use them.”
“Indonesian jails host extremists who recruit for Islamic State from their cells,” by Cindy Wockner and Komang Erviani, News Corp Australia Network, July 7, 2015 (thanks to Kenneth):
THE Indonesian jail island where Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumaran were executed is also the place where some of the country’s most dangerous terrorist ideologues are recruiting and spreading Islamic State propaganda.
Despite the island’s jails being high-security and despite mobile phones being contraband those who want phones have and use them.
There are seven jails on Nusakambangan and terrorists like infamous Jeemah Islamiah founder, now ardent IS supporter, Abu Bakar Ba’aysir, are held in the Pasir Putih prison, supposedly super-maximum security. It was here, one year ago, that Ba’aysir and 23 other prisoners, swore an oath of allegiance to IS, all under the noses of prison guards.
And it is here, according to a report of the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict, that Ba’aysir regularly took mobile phone calls from one of Indonesia’s most extremist preachers, Aman Abdurrahman, who is housed in a different jail on Nusakambangan.
And where last year Abdurrahman was found to have 10 mobile phones in his cell in Kembang Kuning prison.
Corruption inside Indonesia’s prison systems is entrenched and widespread and according to experts, hampering the fight against terrorism and the spread of IS.
Human rights groups, like Komnas, decry the situation, where guards take money to look the other way.
And it is illustrative of the shambolic and inequitable system which executes reformed and rehabilitated drug traffickers, like Sukumaran and Chan, yet allows convicted terrorists to spread their ideology freely within the country’s prisons and to swear allegiance to IS in prison prayer rooms.
Komnas commissioner Dianto Bachriadi says that systems are weak, allowing the drug trade to flourish in jails and for terrorists to operate and strict punishment is needed for inmates and guards caught doing the wrong thing.
“In my opinion, it is not only strict punishment that is needed, but an attempt from the government through related institutions to do ‘cleaning’ and conduct reformation, not only to the system, but also to the people there (guards) who are found guilty of involvement,” Mr Bachriadi said.
Sukumaran and Chan were executed, along with six others, in the early hours of April 29 this year at a firing range on Nusakambangan island, off the coast of Central Java. It was the second group of drug traffickers to be executed in Indonesia this year as President Joko Widodo announced “shock therapy” in a bid to fight drugs….