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Activists report security minister to police over demeaning remarks
Jakarta Globe - January 26, 2015
"Fellow advocates and myself as the representatives of the Indonesian people would like to report Tedjo, the minister for political, legal and security affairs, because he has insulted the people of Indonesia," Azas Tigor Nainggolan, the chairman of the Jakarta Citizens Forum, or Fakta, said after filing a report at the National Police headquarters in South Jakarta on Monday.
The controversy centers on Tedjo's mocking of Abraham Samad, the chairman of the Corruption Eradication Commission, or KPK, who called on the public to rally around the antigraft body after one of its deputy chairmen was arrested by police in a case dating back to 2010.
"Do not provoke the masses by telling them 'Let's do this!' or 'Let's do that!'," he said at the State Palace in Central Jakarta on Saturday, prior to a meeting with President Joko Widodo. "That statement is childish."
He added the KPK would only be strong if it "complies with the Constitution" instead of "getting support from those unimportant people."
Thousands of Indonesians took to Twitter to slam the minister for his remarks, with hashtags such as #Tedjo and #SaveKPK among the top trending topics on Twitter in Indonesia on Sunday.
Supporters of the KPK also took to the streets of Jakarta, Bandung and Makassar on Sunday, many of them holding banners that read "Unimportant People in Support of KPK, #SaveKPK."
Azas said Tedjo's statement was demeaning to the Indonesian people. "This is an insult. I was also there at KPK office on Friday night, and I thought the police would have done something to respond to the insult but they didn't. That's why we're filing a report," he said.
Tedjo has since clarified his statement, saying he only meant that the KPK should avoid ratcheting up the tensions with the police.
"There shouldn't be any mass movement on behalf of the people. Which people? It's all unclear because there are people who have also declared their support for the National Police," he said in a statement on Sunday.
The furor stems from the KPK's naming of Comr. Gen. Budi Gunawan, Joko's controversial nominee for National Police chief, a corruption suspect earlier this month. In an apparent reprisal, the police last Friday arrested KPK deputy chairman Bambang Widjojanto in connection with a perjury complaint first filed in 2010.
Bambang stands accused by a legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party, or PDI-P, of compelling witnesses to perjure themselves during hearings over a district election dispute in 2010. Bambang at the time was a lawyer for one of the parties in the dispute, who was eventually declared the winner of the election.
Police dropped the case after the Constitutional Court ruled on the dispute, but was refiled by the PDI-P official, Sugianto Sabran, earlier this month.
Similarly, fellow KPK deputy chairman Adnan Pandu Praja has been reported to the police by the lawyer for a timber company who accused him of illegally acquiring shares while advising the company during a management feud in 2006.
A third KPK deputy, Zulkarnain, faces the prospect of also being reported to the police, this time by a former East Java provincial legislator he helped convict back in 2008.
Joko, from the PDI-P, has put off the process of naming a new police chief. Budi previously served as the security aide to Joko's political patron, PDI-P chairwoman Megawati Soekarnoputri.
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