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View all search resultsAnti-Ahok organizer claims rallies not motivated by Buni Yani's post
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Witness Munarman (center) shakes hands with Buni Yani's lawyers after testifying in the South Jakarta District Court on Dec. 15. (JP/Safrin La Batu) (JP/Safrin La Batu)
A
n anti-Ahok rally organizer gave testimony before the court on Thursday saying that he watched Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama's statement, allegedly insulting Islam, for the first time on the city's official TV channel.
Munarman, the coordinator of the National Movement to Safeguard the Indonesian Ulema Council's Edict (GNPF-MUI), said that before organizing the rallies, on Nov. 4 and Dec. 2 as a response to Ahok's alleged blasphemy, he watched TV and the official Youtube channel, not Buni Yani's Facebook post.
"I coincidentally watched the TV broadcast," Munarman testified in Buni's pretrial hearing in the South Jakarta District Court.
(Read also: Buni Yani, uploader of Ahok's blasphemy video, named suspect)
Munarman said some people, who later became part of the GNPF-MUI, then held a meeting to decide how to respond to Ahok's statement, which some believe insulted Islam.
"We did not discuss Buni's post at all during the meeting," he said.
The Jakarta Police have named Buni a suspect for inciting religious and ethnic hatred by posting a truncated recording of Ahok's speech. The police said the post provoked people because Buni had added in text that was not said by the governor.
Buni has filed a pretrial motion to challenge the police's decision in naming him a suspect, which he has called "a criminalization against him". He previously claimed to have made the post simply to encourage discussions among his Facebook friends. (dan)
