REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA – The trial of alleged blasphemy case with Basuki Tjahaja Purnama (Ahok) as a defendant was held in the auditorium of the Ministry of Agriculture, South Jakarta, on Tuesday. Today's agenda is the same as the previous week. It was the hearing of the witness testimony.
As many as three witnesses were presented by the complainants. The first witness presented by the public prosecutor today was the Secretary of the Central Board of Muhammadiyah Youth (PP Pemuda Muhammadiyah), Pedri Kasman, as the complainant.
In his statement, he said that he recognized the alleged blasphemy from the video uploaded by Jakarta Provincial Government. However, Pedri said he saw many accounts on social media shared the video. "The first one was from the city government," said Pedri.
However, Pedri admitted that he only did a cursory look at the videos, except the one from the city government. He argued that the entire contents of videos have similarities, especially in the part of Ahok speech which is allegedly degrading Islam. "After watching the video and making sure that the video is authentic, I download it and render it as evidence," said Pedri.
During the trial, the defendant’s legal team kept on peppering that the report only focused on the 13 seconds of recording from total 1 hour 48 minutes duration. "Why do you only see snippets of the video? Do the sentences you disputed can stand alone without looking at the overall impression," said one of the lawyers of Ahok.
"Keep it simple. Here I focused on the words 'do not want to be lied, by using Surah Al Maidah' delivered by the defendant," said Pedri.
Pedri insists that the words found in the piece of video that lasted on 13 seconds have definitely showed an action that outraged the Islamic religion. He focused on his umbrage after listening to Ahok’s statements for 13 seconds," said Pedri asserted.
As information, in this session, the defendant is scheduled to bring five witnesses, while the complainant could only bring three witnesses because two other witnesses gave no confirmation. The three witnesses were the Secretary of PP Pemuda Muhammadiyah Pedri Kasman, Wahyudin Abdul Rashid from MUI Bogor, and Irena Handono.
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