Jakarta Governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama and Deputy Djarot Saiful Hidayat returned to City Hall today after taking 3.5 months leave to campaign for the upcoming election.
When Ahok arrived at around 7 a.m., he was already waited by visiting residents.
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Pak Ahok, welcome back! said one resident gleefully when Ahok exited his car.
The Governor then took pictures and spent some time to talk to the residents about their concerns mostly about Smart Jakarta Card (KJP) and government-owned flats.
Pak Ahok was friendly! I talked to him about the problems in the rented flats and he asked us to wait. He said he will visit the flats himself. He was not grumpy and he smiled a lot, said one of the visitors, Yuliana, to Detik.
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Ahoks tenth trial
Ahok did not stay long at the City Hall as he had to attend his tenth trial of religious blasphemy case.
The trial was scheduled to bring Abdul Chair Ramadhan, a legal expert from Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), Amin Suma, an expert on religion from MUI, Mahyuni, a linguist, and Muzakkir, also a linguist.
Ahoks legal team rejected the two chosen experts from MUI as the team saw their judgement will be biased. However, the judge proceeded but said he would reconsider whether their statement will be used later.
In his testimony, Mahyuni explained that Ahoks speech in Thousand Islands district contains elements of abuse to the Quranic verse of Al-Maidah:51.
He said that there is no difference between the use and the absence of word using in Ahoks statement.
Ahok was recorded saying that people are being lied to using Al-Maidah:51 which started the whole religious blasphemy debacle. The statement has created a debatewhether being lied to using Al-Maidah has the same meaning as being lied to by Al-Maidah.
Its the same, because the word using here is passive. It will not change the meaning if the word is there or not, Mahyuni said. The word itself, when used in his statement, has a negative meaning.
Only Amin Suma and Mahyuni appeared on court today, thus the trial finished early.