One of the many legal problems currently facing Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) leader Habib Rizieq is the accusation that he lied and spread misinformation about Indonesia’s new rupiah bills by saying that they contained communist symbols during a sermon which somehow remains on Youtube.
Rizieq has been reported to the police by multiple parties for violating Indonesia’s law on Electronic Law on Electronic Transactions (UU ITE) for spreading the misinformation about the rupiah leading to public unrest.
Bank Indonesia has explained numerous times, on social media and through dozens upon dozens of new articles, that the images that Rizieq claims to be a sickle and hammer are, in actuality, part of a “rectoverso” system designed to make the bills more difficult to forge.
Nonetheless, the police are being extremely thorough in debunking Rizieq’s communist symbol claim. Yesterday, they called in Bank Indonesia’s director of financial services, Desimus, as well as BI’s deputy director of communication, Andi Wijaya, for seven hours of questioning regarding the new rupiah design and, presumably, why the things that kinda look like hammers and sickles on them aren’t actually hammers or sickles at all.
“We came here to meet the police summons on the report of alleged dissemination of false information in a video that is circulating. So we were asked about the security features, why they were there and so forth,” explained Andi as quoted by Okezone yesterday.
Police also questioned experts in criminology and information technology in relation to the case.
While we can appreciate the police being thorough in their investigation, did they really need to spend that much time debunking the communist symbol claim?
Surely common sense must play a role in investigating these sorts of accusations, right? Like, if Indonesia was, in fact, being secretly being controlled by communist forces, as conspiracy theorists like Rizieq like to claim, why on Earth would they just put their symbols on the country’s money for all to see? Wouldn’t that be, like, the worst secret communist cabal ever?
