On May 11, police officers, once again armed and in plainclothes, arrested another two Kuala Langkat villagers who were opposed to the clearing of the mangroves. Safii, 48, and Taufik, 34, were arrested while fishing. Ateng, a fellow fisherman on the same boat, described how the officers arrived in a speedboat around 9 a.m. and ordered the two men to come with them.

“We did not see the police who arrested them show any identification or provide an arrest warrant,” Ateng told Mongabay.

At night, the villagers gathered at the police station and called for the release of the two men.

Safii and Taufik said they were arrested by the police because they were accused of damaging the home of a man identified only by the initials SAR, said to be BP’s right-hand man. That incident occurred hours after the arrest of Ilham, with villagers accusing SAR of being behind the arrest. Safii and Taufik said that while they did attend the protest outside SAR’s home, they weren’t involved in any kind of vandalism.

During the subsequent arrest of Safii and Taufik, fellow fishermen confirmed seeing SAR on board the police speedboat, pointing at the two men and appearing to order the police to detain them.

Sumiati Surbakti, chair of the Srikandi Lestari Foundation, a women-led environmental nonprofit, said field visits by her organization with LBH Medan and the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, an NGO known as Kontras, showed a high number of oil palms in protected forest areas in Langkat.

“This omission shows that policyholders from the provincial to the village level don’t support the Joko Widodo government’s program to suppress climate change by conserving mangrove forests,” Sumiati said.

Adi Yoga Kemit, a lawyer for Kontras, said their investigation had found villagers who opposed the destruction of mangrove forests faced threats and intimidation by thugs hired by the businessmen.

“We urge the police to arrest the financial backers and anyone involved in destroying mangrove forests in Kuala Langkat,” Adi said. “Stop criminalizing people who protect mangroves.”

Advocates from LBH Medan have twice visited the North Sumatra police headquarters to request information on the encroachment of Langkat’s mangrove forests.

“We urge that Ilham’s report regarding the damage to the mangrove ecosystem in Langkat be followed up immediately,” Ali said.