Celebrity musician, failed politician, Nazi-apparel aficionado and hate speech convict Ahmad Dhani may be the first Indonesian to be sentenced for two violations of the controversial Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE) — which criminalizes the dissemination of hate speech, defamation and more online — in quick succession.
Dhani, who was imprisoned in Cipinang Penitentiary in East Jakarta following his 18-month prison sentence for hate speech under UU ITE last week, is being transferred to the East Java capital of Surabaya this morning so he can attend the opening session to yet another hate speech/UU ITE trial, as reported by Detik.
In August of last year, Dhani attended an event in support of the #2019GantiPresiden (#2019ChangeThePresident) opposition movement in Surabaya. Members of the Banser youth wing of Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), Indonesia and the world’s largest Muslim organization, then came to protest the event, preventing Dhani and his colleagues from leaving their hotel. At one point, in a vlog posted by Dhani to his social media account, the musician called the protesters “idiots” to express his frustration.
That remark angered Banser after the vlog went viral and Dhani was soon reported to the police for hate speech. By October, the East Java Provincial Police had named him a suspect in the case.
Previously, Dhani was found guilty of violating UU ITE for spreading hate speech online through a series of tweets that were posted to his official Twitter account, @AHMADDHANIPRAST.
The tweets related to the politicized allegations of blasphemy against Basuki “BTP” Tjahaja Purnama (aka the former Jakarta Governor formerly known as Ahok). Dhani was reported to the police in March 2017 by members of BTP Network, a group of volunteers working for BTP and former Vice Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat during their reelection campaign, specifically for a tweet in which he wrote, “Anyone who supports the religious blasphemer is a bastard who needs to be spit on in their faces”.
Following Dhani’s conviction, fellow conservative politicians from the opposition called for UU ITE to be repealed or changed (even though they were at least partially responsible for its existence in its current form) arguing that, as it did in Dhani’s case, it could “invade freedom of thought and opinion.”
It’s a sentiment that rights activists arguing against UU ITE have long expressed, and, as much we hate to see anybody convicted unjustly under the controversial law, if Dhani’s possible double prison sentence is what finally spurs legislators to finally abolish UU ITE, then perhaps some good could come out of it.
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