Police refuse to free student who uploaded bribery video

The Jakarta Post Oct 2 2015


The police in Ternate have ignored public outcry and demands for the release of Adlun Fiqri, a student arrested for uploading a video of a police officer accepting money from a road-rules violator.

The public have also called on the Legal Aid Foundation (LBH) to file a complaint with the National Police Commission (Kompolnas).

Detective and Crime chief at Ternate police precinct Samsudin Lossen said on Friday that he was not concerned about facing Kompolnas and the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM) with regard to the Adlun case.

“I am not afraid […] The suspect has confirmed that he committed the crime,” he said as quoted by tempo.co.

The police officers, he continued, had gathered information from six eyewitnesses, including another police officer and the motorist in the video.

The police decided to proceed with Adlun’s case because the student had slandered the police officer and the police institution. Samsudin told the LBH to file an official complaint to Kompolnas and Komnas HAM on this issue.

Adlun Fiqri’s video, showing a police officer taking money from a motorcyclist, has gone viral. The student of Khairun University in Ternate, Maluku, was imprisoned after uploading the video to YouTube with the title “Police in action asking for bribes in Ternate”.

The Ternate police arrested Adlun on Monday, charging him with defamation and violating the Information Technology and Electronics Transactions (ITE) Law, which carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.

After the information about Adlun’s arrest was exposed in the media, the public condemned the police and demanded his release using the hashtag #saveadlun on twitter and other social media.



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