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The Chaos in Jakarta

On November 4th 2016, chaos struck Jakarta where a huge demonstration from the
Islamic society made a motion to bring down Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok). The reason why
the Islamic society made this motion is because on September 27 th 2016, Ahok made a speech
which unintentionally offended the Islamic society because he mentioned Surah Al-Maidah 51.
Surah Al-Maidah 51 states that Moslems should choose candidates that are Islam, in this case
Ahok is not Islam. After he made his speech, Buni Yani uploaded the speech video online on the
6th of October but edited the video and cutting out certain words from the video. Because of that,
some Islamic figures protested and reported it to the authorities.
Basuki Tjahaja Purnama tried to make peace by apologizing to the Islamic society on the
th
10 of October, he explained that he never meant to offend anyone with the speech he made.
Eventually, the Islamic society protested on the 14th of that month to attract the attention of the
authorities to investigate the case. 10 days later, Ahok came to the police to give his clarification
towards the case.
The peak of the problem came through on the 4 th of November 2016 where the Islamic
society did a demonstration against Ahok in a huge scale and numbers. These people demanded
that president Jokowi gets involved in this case. At first the demonstration went well with peace,
but in the evening of that day, the situation becomes heated and caused the protesters to foul-up
against the authorities leaving 4 protesters and 3 cops injured. The following day, President
Jokowi called in an emergency meeting.
After all the heat and chaos of 411, on the 7th of November Ahok was asked to come to
the police station for some questions. The next day, Jokowi made a statement that the case will
be brought to justice and Ahok will be investigated further. A lot of conspiracy theories are going
around about is this just a religion issue or political strategy from Ahoks rival. Thus, on the 16 th
of November, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama was officially a suspect of religion defamation. Further
on the case will be continued while Basuki Tjahaja Purnama remains a candidate of Jakartas
governor.