A friend writes:
“Dear Sara,
Below please find another example of how the ministers under SBY [current
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono] deal with women’s
issues.
Therefore it will be a waste of time to write to SBY regarding the caning
of the rape victim in Aceh.
The only possible way to have any influence is to use the foreign press
as social pressure, as a reminder to whoever will be elected this year
that Indonesia will lose its credibility as a leader among ASEAN nations. And
as long as the Indonesian government consists of incompetent and corrupt
officials, countries like Malaysia, Singapore etc. will overtake our position
as leaders in world affairs.”
Communications Minister Under Fire for Response to
Boko Haram Question
The Jakarta Post, May 12, 2014
Jakarta. Gaffe-prone Communications Minister Tifatul
Sembiring stoked ire on Twitter after he appeared to make light of a question
about a website supporting Nigeria-based militant group Boko Haram —
responsible for thousands of killings and the recent kidnapping of over 200
schoolgirls — even as he moved to ban a popular video sharing site over
supposedly “pornographic” content.
Radical Islamist website Arrahmah has praised the terrorist
group.
“Mr. @tifsembiring, you promised to fight
pro-terrorism websites. How will you respond against @arrahmah
which is pro-BokoHaram?” Islamic Liberal Network (JIL) activist Akhmad Sahal
tweeted on Sunday.
“Do you want a serious one or a joke?” Tifatul, a senior
member and former chairman of the tIslamist leaning Prosperous Justice Party
(PKS), responded.
Sahal said that he expected a serious, official answer.
Tifatul wrote: “[You] go to school far away and still ask
about halal-haram, please bro… :D.”
Sahal is based at the University of Pennsylvania in the
United States, according to his twitter information.
He asked if Tifatul’s tweet constituted the official
government response.
“He he he. I haven’t
answered about Boko Haram [because] it became a fuss. You yourself know whether
kidnapping is halal or haram. Don’t you have other work to do,
commentators… :D,” the Communications Minister wrote.
The exchange sparked outrage over its seeming flippancy, and
it coincided with the ministry’s controversial decision to ban popular video sharing site
Vimeo, which caused a furor of its own.
Tifatul is no stranger to online controversy or off-color
responses to tragedy.
In March, he attracted attention for following a pornographic Twitter account “by
accident.”
In November of 2010, followers accused him of hypocrisy
after he was seen shaking hands with US First Lady Michelle Obama after stating that he did not
shake hands with women for religious reasons.
“I tried to prevent [the handshake] but Mrs. Michelle held
her hands too far toward me, so we touched,” he tweeted at the time.
In 2009, he
blamed immorality for a Sumatra earthquake and other natural disasters.
He has over 756,000 Twitter followers.
Fabulous.
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