On Tuesday’s session of Jakarta Governor Basuki Ahok Tjahaja Purnama’s ongoing blasphemy trial, several witnesses for the prosecution testified that they had seen Ahok’s speech, given in late September while he was addressing a group of citizens on Pramuka Island in the Pulau Seribu district of Jakarta, in which he made his allegedly blasphemous reference to verse Al Maidah 51 of the Koran.
However, as Ahok and his lawyers noted, none of the witnesses, who were all affiliated with Islamic hardliner organizations such as the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), were actually physically present when Ahok made his speech in Pramuka Island in Pulau Seribu. They had only watched a video of it some time later.
In fact, amongst the numerous people who filed police reports against Ahok for blasphemy, none of them were citizens of Pulau Seribu let alone people who actually attended the speech. The governor and his defenders have pointed out that if his comments had actually blasphemed Islam, than those in the audience listening to his speech would have immediately been angered.
“If [Ahok] had insulted my religion, [FPI leader Habib Rizieq] wouldn’t have needed to report him, I would have stabbed Pak Ahok right there,” said Abdi, a 21-year-old resident of the Thousand Islands while speaking at Ahok’s campaign headquarters in Menteng, Rumah Lembang, yesterday as quoted by Kompas.
Abdi and some other citizens of Pulau Seribu were at Ahok’s HQ yesterday to show their support for the governor. He said that he and other residents of the islands were confused by the furor over Ahok’s speech.
“Regarding Pak Ahok’s statement on Pramuka Island, I think personally and my acquaintances in Pulau Seribu are confused. Where is the defamation of religion? Which statement?” Abdi asked, adding that the citizens of the Muslim majority district would not have stayed silent if Ahok had in fact insulted their faith. He also said that nobody living Pulau Seribu had joined the massive anti-Ahok protests that FPI and other Islamic organizations had organized.
The secretary general of FPI’s Jakarta chapter, Habib Novel, one of the leading anti-Ahok activists and the target of the recent Fitsa Hat meme, argued in court that he had, in fact, received many calls and SMS messages from residents of Pulau Seribu saying they had felt insulted by Ahok’s speech immediately after hearing it.
But speaking after Tuesday’s court session, Ahok noted that Novel couldn’t provide a shred of evidence that for that claim.
“Habib Novel said that on the afternoon of September 27, he got a lot of calls from Pulau Seribu saying that I had insulted and blasphemed religion. But when asked who called he said that the SMS and call logs had already been erased,” Ahok said as quoted by Detik.
Police said they would examine Novel’s phone records to see if they could find any evidence of his claims.
