The Commission for the Protection of Indonesian Children (KPAI) says it plans to summon representatives of President Joko Widodo and Prabowo Subianto’s election campaigns over an extremely troubling social media post that raises the disturbing possibility of children becoming victims of the ongoing election feud.
Recently, a photo has been circulating online showing a boy, who looks to be in his early teens, dressed in an all-white outfit that closely resembles the uniform of the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (FPI). The photo, posted as a story on Instagram, contains a caption that says:
May 22, 2019
I SMELL HEAVEN on that date. If I am one of those who fall during the struggle on May 22, 2019, then BY GOD I accept.
MY DEAD BODY will SMILE because my DEATH will be in GOD’s path by fighting for TRUTH. I am just an ordinary civilian who will go wearing a thobe, a white turban, which means my CORPSE will RETURN [to God].
The disturbing photo, which we aren’t sharing here, appears to have originally been uploaded by the boy himself. His Instagram profile also includes other posts glorifying self-sacrifice in the name of jihad.
“We are inviting the chairman of TKN (President Jokowi’s campaign) and the chairman of BPN (Prabowo’s campaign) to discuss how to anticipate and prevent [what the boy alluded to in his post],” KPAI Chairman Susanto told Detik today, adding that KPAI would like to sit down with representatives of the two campaigns tomorrow.
Neither TKN nor BPN have released any statement regarding the photo.
The General Election Commission (KPU) is set to announce the official result of the 2019 presidential election on May 22. The idea of a religious struggle element to the election has largely been perpetuated by senior politicians in Prabowo’s campaign as well as hardline Islamist groups affiliated with the candidate, such as the FPI, whic claims there has been massive and systemic fraud in the election and demanded that President Jokowi resign for orchestrating the fraud.
Such claims have yet to be substantiated by Prabowo’s campaign. On the contrary, their attempts to prove election fraud — thereby delegitimizing Prabowo’s all-but-certain defeat to Jokowi — have been very questionable so far.
This is not the first instance of alleged religious militancy involving children being linked to Prabowo’s campaign. Earlier this month, a video went viral showing a group of Islamic boarding school students, armed mostly with sharp bamboo sticks, declaring that they’d fight for Prabowo’s victory “until the last drop of blood.” Police said they would investigate the video, but there have been no developments to the case since.
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