Seven people in Indonesia have been detained after a failed plot to attack Pope Francis during his visit to the country.
Local media says the people – listed as HFP, LB, DF, FA, HS, ER and RS – were taken by police on Sept. 2 and Sept. 3 in Jakarta, Bogor and Bekasi.
Spokesperson Colonel Aswin Siregar told reporters that investigations are still ongoing, and it is not known if they detainees knew each other or were part of the same terrorist group.
“We have a mechanism to monitor and filter. We had tip-off information from members of the public,” he said.
“Densus 88 has taken legal action against seven individuals… who made threats in the form of propaganda or terror threats via social media in response to the pope’s arrival,” Aswin told reporters.
“There was also a threat to set fire to the locations,” he added.
A source told The Straits Times one of the detainees was a house with bows and arrows, a drone and ISIS leaflets.
“One of the arrested is a militant who belongs to the same terror group that attacked Wiranto,” the source told the newspaper, referring to Indonesia’s then Chief Security Minister – who goes by one name – who was stabbed and wounded by two Islamist terrorists in 2019.
The source also told The Straits Times the terrorists were angry about Pope Francis’s visit to Jakarta’s Istiqlal mosque and the government’s appeal to television stations to refrain from the usual broadcasting of the Islamic call to prayer while the live broadcast of Pope Francis’s visit was in session.
Indonesia has suffered Islamist attacks over the past decades, starting with the 2002 bombing in Bali that killed over 200 people.
On Sept. 5, Pope Francis met with the Grand Imam of Istiqlal Mosque, where they signed a joint declaration calling for tolerance and an end to climate change.
The joint declaration voicing concern over the issues of climate change and “dehumanization.”
Dehumanization, the declaration said, “is marked especially by widespread violence and conflict, frequently leading to an alarming number of victims.”
“It is particularly worrying that religion is often instrumentalized in this regard, causing suffering to many, especially women, children and the elderly,” saying the global role of religion “should include promoting and safeguarding the dignity of every human life.”
Pope Francis and Umar issued a series of appeals based on their respective religious teachings, the first of which was to promote their religious traditions “in order to defeat the culture of violence and indifference afflicting our world.”
“Indeed, religious values should be directed towards promoting a culture of respect, dignity, compassion, reconciliation and fraternal solidarity in order to overcome both dehumanization and environmental destruction,” they said.
