T

he sinister circumstances surrounding the death of suspected terrorist Siyono and the blatant cover-up attempts by the police are no trifles. They reflect a serious loophole in the national strategy to combat terrorism that, if not immediately addressed, would only jeopardize our freedom and put us at a greater risk of terrorist attacks.

The war on terrorism is neither quick nor cheap. It is folly if we decide to prolong and exacerbate it further by allowing the police’s counterterrorism squad, the Special Detachment, or Densus 88, to casually use heavy-handed tactics or, worse, totally illegal and unconstitutional approaches to clamp down on local terrorist cells. Not only does it risk radicalizing more Muslims, it gravely compromises our civil liberties.

The police, therefore, must adequately answer the lingering questions that arose following an independent autopsy initiated by the country’s prominent Muslim organization Muhammadiyah and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) on Siyono.

The autopsy, conducted by members of the Indonesian Forensics Physicians Organization, concluded that Siyono’s body had not been examined before. This finding contradicted the police’s statement that they had carried out their own autopsy and found that Siyono succumbed to his wounds after a scuffle with Densus 88 officers when trying to escape, a claim that the forensics team proved wrong. The examination did not find any sign that Siyono had defended himself.

So who was lying? The police or Muhammadiyah/Komnas HAM? During the press conference to announce the autopsy results, Siyono’s grieving widow, Suratmi, said she was given Rp 100 million (US$7,598) by the police, which many allege was a bribery attempt to silence her.

Of course, Suratmi could be lying, but where did she get Rp 100 million from just to frame the police? And why would Muhammadiyah and Komnas HAM make up such a damning allegation when the autopsy findings are incriminating enough to press the police to come clean on what transpired before Siyono’s death?

Muhammadiyah and Komnas HAM should not be the only institutions pushing for transparency and accountability with regard to Siyono’s highly suspicious death. Other Muslim organizations, moderate or liberal, should make the same demands for this is not about defending or having sympathy for “terrorists”. We need to do this to protect our civil rights, to reject any form of unwarranted state violence and to ensure that no citizen can be convicted of any crime without due process.

Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) chairman Said Aqil Siradj’s statement that he believed in the police’s claims about the Siyono case is at best premature. The police are not the most credible institution in the country.

The public also questioned their willingness to defend minorities and the freedom of speech in the face of attacks against them by violent and intolerant groups. So why the silence for Siyono? Are the police more credible and more professional when they are fighting terrorists?

For years, the police have relied on their “success” in battling terrorism to polish their tainted image and they have been successful in doing that, as it is easier to sway people’s opinions when they live in fear. It is any wonder they were quick to frame those investigating Siyono’s death as “defenders of terrorists”.

The police believe Siyono was the leader of Neo Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), a term they coined to describe a network of young Muslim militants who are rooted in the old JI movement. They also claimed Siyono was an important figure in Neo-JI and that he knew the location of the group’s arsenal and weapon-making factory.

But did Densus 88 always know what they were saying? The squad might have succeeded in crippling JI and containing local Islamic State (IS) militants, including the terrorist group led by Santoso, but they still made some mistakes.

The police, for instance, were confident that Bahrun Naim was the mastermind behind the Jan. 14 attack in Central Jakarta. A study by the Institute for the Policy Analysis of Conflict later found that an IS-affiliated group, Jemaah Ansharul Khilafah (JAK), led by Aman Abdurrahman carried out the attack.

All of the local pro-IS groups, including the one linked to Bachrun, did try to instigate attacks on Indonesian soil, but there was deep antagonism among these groups. They were competing with each other for influence in the region and therefore it was very unlikely they would coordinate when carrying out the attacks. It is only natural for law enforcers to make erroneous conclusions and even to arrest and charge an innocent person, but such a mistake becomes unacceptable when they are given a carte blanche to torture and kill in the name of fighting terrorism. Even if Siyono had been a terrorist, there was no justification for his killing.

Terrorism is powered by the notion of martyrdom. Killing terrorists will not end terrorism. It only makes it stronger. Al-Qaeda still exists after the death of its icon, Osama bin Laden. Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) became the IS movement, a global terrorist network, after the death of its notorious founder, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. These terrorist groups survive despite the killings of dozens of al-Qaeda No. 2s and IS No. 2s.

But asking the police to be transparent and accountable in the war on terrorism is more than just an attempt to improve our counterterrorism strategy in order to make us safer while still keeping our freedom. It is also our way to differentiate ourselves from the terrorists.

If Densus 88 refuses to be transparent and cannot be held accountable for its conduct — including for allegedly torturing and killing suspected terrorists and then lying about it — then how are they different from the people they fight against?