The Communications and Information Ministry has reopened access to several radical blogs for investigation purposes following the reactivation of a blog linked to the suspected orchestrator of the Jakarta attack, Bahrun Naim.

Communications and Information Minister Rudiantara said on Tuesday that the ministry had initially blocked and deleted blogs and websites containing radical or provocative messages.

However, some of them have meanwhile been reopened by the ministry to support the police investigation.

"The police will need it to track down [blog users] and their locations," he told journalists on Tuesday.

Regarding the reactivated blog attributed to Bahrun, Rudiantara said social media tended to come and go. The blog's name was initially www.bahrunnaim.co and was blocked by the government after the terrorist attack on Thursday.

The blog then changed its name into www.bahrunnaim.site, where Bahrun apparently wrote blog posts on Monday reviewing the attack and claiming they had been carried out in retaliation against the police.

He supposedly posed another blog story on Tuesday, but as of 3 p.m on Tuesday, the blog could no longer be accessed.

Rudiantara said the blog posts could have been written by somebody else affiliated to Bahrun and in charge of maintaining the blog.

The ministry has given special permission to the National Police, the National Counterterrorism Agency (BNPT) and the State Intelligence Agency (BIN) to block websites or social media accounts containing radical or terrorism-related content.

The ministry was searching for websites containing radical and terrorist ideology, Rudiantara said. (rin)

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