Those involved in terrorism must be arrested, but their detention has been questioned. In the last month, police have arrested 18 people in Jakarta, Lampung, Solo and Semarang, who are suspected of being involved in bombing attempts. The rapid and secret police operation began a few days after the Marriott bomb. The arrests have been questioned for two reasons. Firstly the targets were mostly mosque activists, and secondly, how the intelligence teams' method of arresting suspects resembled kidnappings.

But before anything else, we must first be certain of whether terrorism must be eradicated and whether the police are trying to do this. The situation in Indonesia regarding what constitutes terrorism is different from that in the rest of the world. Everybody has the right to political sentiment, bias, solidarity and perceptions regarding victims, and it is impossible to force everybody to have the same views. What we must try to avoid are these different opinions that can turn the fight against terrorism into something the public feels is unnecessary or wrong. Combating terrorism needs special methods, and we must not make the police feel uneasy about taking the right steps to achieve results.

The police have denied all the accusations. They were accused of carrying out sweeping operations against Islamic activists. The anti-terrorism efforts mostly involved such activists, yet the police said that the target was not the religious community, but people who are suspected of involvement in terror networks. Some were thought to have helped assemble bombs or supply explosives and others were suspected of knowing about attacks that have already been carried out or being planned. All of these actions contravene the anti-terrorism laws. The arrests were made based on suspected actions and involvement, not on membership of a group.

Although special methods are necessary to ensure the effectiveness of an operation, it is important that correct procedures be followed. The police were accused of acting randomly, carrying out raids without producing warrants and detaining people without informing their families. The people arrested were ill-treated, according to their families. The National Police chief denied these claims before the Indonesian Ulemas Council. The arrests were carried out by the police acting in their authority as investigators according to the criminal code. Although the arrests were conducted in secret, their basis was not intelligence assessments that would require the approval of the local courts, as stipulated in the Anti-terrorism Law. If the police acted improperly, he said, take legal action through the courts.

Sometimes the primary and secondary issues must be separated, not merely contrasted. Under certain conditions, we are forced to choose what takes priority because it is impossible to do everything at once. For the police, the priority is to paralyze the terrorist network as quickly as possible, and following the correct procedures becomes a secondary consideration. But public tolerance of their special methods is limited because of the far from satisfactory reputation of the police in protecting the public. Moreover this use of special authority can only be understood in extraordinary circumstances; in the long run, it could easily turn into abuse of power.

This current unpredictable situation must be resolved by the public and the police working together and agreeing that terrorism must be fought. Any deficiencies, or mistakes, need not detract from the rightness of the aim in eradicating terrorism. There will be oversight to prevent abuses if every special authority is obtained with the consent of the people.