Jakarta Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s alleged blasphemy against Islam has dominated Indonesian news for the past few months, culminating in two mass protests by Islamic groups and plenty of political drama.
This whole fiasco arguably began when a university lecturer by the name of Buni Yani uploaded a snippet of Ahok’s speech in Kepulauan Seribu (Thousand Islands), in which the governor purportedly said the Islamic holy book of Quran deceives people into not voting for him, a Christian in a Muslim-majority country.
Just as Ahok was last week named a suspect for his alleged blasphemy, Buni Yani too was last night named a suspect for allegedly inciting religious hatred. The Jakarta Metro Police’s Cyber Crimes Sub-directorate charged Buni Yani with violations of Articles 28 and 45 of the Information and Electronic Transactions Act (UU ITE), which could see him jailed for up to 6 years and fined Rp 1 billion.
According to the police, Buni Yani’s fault was that his transcript of Ahok’s speech was missing some key words so that it seemed that Ahok said the Quran itself deceives people, where in actuality Ahok said that people use the Quran to deceive others in the full version of his speech.
The police believe that Buni Yani’s transcript was written with the intention of inciting religious hatred, which could possibly lead to conflict between groups of people with different religions and/or race.
Through his attorney, Buni Yani said he was shocked that he had been named a suspect.
“He (Buni Yani) just sent a message to his family and the people of this nation, asking them for their prayers. He was shocked that [the police] gave him an arrest warrant, which automatically means that he’s a suspect,” said Aldwin Rahadian, Buni Yani’s legal representative, as quoted by Detik yesterday.
Aldwin added that Buni Yani refused to sign the arrest warrant. The police have not yet announced if or when they would put Buni Yani in detention while the investigation into his case is ongoing.
