'Jokowi’s magic has now gone': Prabowo ready for presidential debate

Terrorism, human rights, legal affairs and corruption will take centre stage when President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo and his opponent Prabowo Subianto square off in the first presidential debate of 2019.

Tens of millions of Indonesians are expected to tune in for the debatel, which will also feature Widodo's running mate, the Islamic cleric Ma'ruf Amin, and Prabowo's offsider, former Jakarta deputy governor Sandiaga Uno.

Indonesian President Joko Widodo may be targeted for not making enough progress in tackling endemic corruption in Indonesia.

Both camps have indicated they will try to focus on the issues that matter to voters and their political programs – rather than ramping up political attacks on their opponents – but both sides have vulnerabilities that may be too tempting for the other to ignore.

Prabowo is still dogged by allegations of human rights abuses taking place when he was a military commander in East Timor, and alleged involvement in the kidnapping of activists during the 1998 reformasi demonstrations that led to the end of former president Suharto's long rule – charges he has always denied.

The challenger, in turn, may target Widodo for not making enough progress in tackling endemic corruption in Indonesia.

Neither candidate had yet made big promises to tackle these issues, he said, but both had indicated their support for greater religious tolerance – a founding principle of Indonesia, but one that has been eroded by the rise of Islamism in recent years.

Prabowo-Sandi campaign spokesman Andre Rosiade flagged ahead of the debate the case of Novel Baswedan – an investigator with the respected Komisi Pemberantasan Korupsi (anti-corruption commission, or KPK) – who was attacked with hydrochloric acid in April 2017, and whose case remains unsolved, will likely be raised.

Rosiade said that "God willing, Prabowo and Sandi will solve it within 100 days [if they win the election] so that there will be legal certainty for KPK investigators that no more a group of thugs could terrorise KPK".

Rosiade claimed the shine had gone from the still-popular President.

"The most important thing is that Jokowi’s magic has now gone. He is in fact nothing special; we’ve seen it in the last four years. He offered hope and how he has no more hope [to offer]," he said.

"We won’t be attacking [Widodo and Amin]. We will only propose ideas for betterment."

Aria Bima, an official in the Jokowi-Ma’ruf Amin campaign team, said the President and his running mate would focus on the goverment's achievments in the nearly five years since the last election, and their plans for the future.

"We will say, you said that building infrastructure is not important, we will explain that it is not the case, that infrastructure is important. They [Prabowo] said that Indonesia will be extinct one day [an infamous claim made by the candidate in a 2018 speech], we will explain the fact that Indonesia is one among a handful of the most productive countries in the world. We want to build up a good spirit," he said.

Human Rights Watch Indonesia researcher Andreas Harsono suggested neither of the candidates were likely to criticise the other on how to tackle terrorism, but each could critique the other on human rights and corruption.

"What are the biggest human rights issues in Indonesia? According to several public surveys, there are three issues. One is religious violence and intolerance; the second is land grabbing for palm oil plantations and mining; and the third is discrimination against women – female genital mutilation, child marriages, and the mandatory wearing of hijabs [in some places]," he said.

Infrastructure investment, including in road, rail and housing, has been a major focus for Widodo in his first term.

If re-elected – Widodo leads Prabowo in reputable polls – the President's campaign team says he will focus on investment in human capital and look to spend more on schools, universities and health care in his second term.

Prabowo, for his part, has promised tax cuts (though few Indonesians actually pay tax) and programs to improve childhood nutrition so far. Further major promises are expected in the lead up to the Aprl 17 poll, when Indonesians will also vote for local members of parliament.

brisbane times

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Mesut Özil Walks Away from German Team Alleging Racism on a Sad Day for German Football

By Preity Uupala
Observer Staff Writer

Germany's world cup failure blamed on Özil, despite his stellar record over his career

Twitter

Turkey president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan says today in Ankara that he is glad with Mesut Özil's stance: "I called him on Monday night and we talked. They simply can't stomach the fact that he took a picture with me. His attitude was nationalistic. I kiss his eyes and I stand by him"

One of the most scandalous stories to hit the soccer world was yesterday's news surrounding mid-fielder Mesut Özil's departure from the German national team due to "racial and disrespect". A shocking departure following the 2018 world cup in Russia, of Arsenal star Özil, who also played for Germany and is of Turkish descent.

In a statement, Özil writes: " It is with a heavy heart and after much consideration that because of recent events, I will no longer be playing for Germany at an international level whilst I have this feeling of racism and disrespect"- Mesut Özil.

There may have been accusations that Germany's spectacular failure this world cup can be blamed due to his poor performance. But it seems ludicrous. The German team lost because they played poorly and lost as a collective team. No one player can be blamed and management and coach are equally at fault.

He made a spectacular statement" When we win, I am German; when we lose, I am an immigrant". The issue here is not one of his performance, but a much deeper issue of racism and abuse.

It all started in may 2018 when Özil met and posed for photography with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and signed a t-shirt with the words "For my president". Ozil was quick to justify that this was a courteous gesture on his part and he was not making any sort of political endorsement saying that "It would have been disrespecting the roots of my ancestry", had he not made the gesture. But the photo did not go down well with German media and the German Football Association (FA) who heavily criticized it and left Özil out for a lot of the pre-world cup promo activities.

It is a sad day for Germany because this idea of an integrated German team, one that is inclusive, diverse and respectful is under attack. The fact that one of the most high profile players does not feel comfortable representing the national team makes it a huge story. Özil has always claimed that he has two hearts: one German and one Turkish.

However, these are very tense times for Germany regarding race tensions and a story like this falls right into the arms of those who wish to use it for political gain. It is a shame to see far-right parties like the AFD, use this as a part of their identity politics strategy in an attempt to showcase that diversity and immigration simply don't work. Yes, there are serious issues with immigration and refugee influx, especially where there is no integration or assimilation on the part of those who take refuge. And in many ways, this human refugee experiment has failed Europe and especially Germany creating all sorts of internal conflicts and tensions.

But with Özil, this is hardly the case here. Far from bringing a refugee, he was born in Germany as was his father, speaks perfect German, grew up here and for all intents and purposes is very German, he is an example of the diversity that has triumphed not failed.

               

What makes things worse is that other foreign players in the German national team like Miroslav Klose and Joseph Podolski are always referred to as German and not German-Polish and yet Özil was always German- Turkish, because of his Muslim heritage.

For someone who has worn that German jersey 92 times scoring 23 goals internationally, being a vital part of the 2014 team that lifted the world cup trophy and who has been German player of the year 5 times, this is a sad ending to a wonderful career. He has done a lot of charity work and has been a great role model on and off the field but all of this seems to be of little significance and consequence for some in the German media and FA.

There have been mixed reactions; from a global outrage for soccer fans around the world who applauded Özil for standing up to racism, to some saying German Football is better off without him, to some in the German Football Association downplaying it and reducing it to poor performance instead of a much more larger, sensitive race problem and to some who realize something precious has been lost.

Once a hero, Mesut Özil's now just a scapegoat for racists. And his suddenly abbreviated Germany career serves as a microcosm of Europe's shifting stance on immigration.

The German FA seems to downplay the racial issues and condensing it to Özil poor performance in recent times. The Bayern Munich President, Uli Hoeness, and the German FA have been harsh to come back with scandalous quotes that Özil performance has slumped in the recent past and that he does not belong on the national team. It blames Germany's world cup failure down to one player and seems to erode Özil's stellar record over his career. You may not think he was playing his best soccer in recent times but a total ignorance over the racial issue is very reckless for Germany moving forward.

It shows wanted disregard for a serious issue of racial tensions not just in the team but the nation as well. It shows a lack of understating the difference inherent in a player and shoving that difference back into their face rather than protecting them from various racial abuses and mistreatment, subtle, as they may have been. Perhaps this shows the deeply embedded racism that still exists within the DFA and in Germany. How does this affect the future Mesut Özil who dream of playing for Germany; they may now think twice. Time will only tell.

Mesut Özil will continue to play for English club Arsenal and possibly create more history there but the real loser here is German football.

Santa Monica Observer

Mesut Özil Walks Away from German Team Alleging Racism on a Sad Day for German Football

Mesut Özil Walks Away from German Team Alleging Racism on a Sad Day for ... One of the most scandalous stories to hit the soccer world was yesterday's news surrounding mid-fielder Mesut Öz...

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Indonesia | 'I felt disgusted': inside Indonesia's fake Twitter account factories

People attend a rally to show support for jailed former governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama - known by his nickname Ahok. Photograph: Bay Ismoyo/AFP/Getty Images via The Guardian

Kate Lamb in Jakarta

Monday, 23 Jul 2018

To pass them off as real, Alex would enliven his fake accounts with dashes of humanity. Mixed up among the stream of political posts, his avatars – mostly pretty young Indonesian women – would bemoan their broken hearts and post pictures of their breakfasts.

But these fake accounts were not for fun; Alex and his team were told it was "war".

"When you're at war you use anything available to attack the opponent," says Alex from a cafe in central Jakarta, "but sometimes I felt disgusted with myself."

For several months in 2017 Alex, whose name has been changed, alleges he was one of more than 20 people inside a secretive cyber army that pumped out messages from fake social media accounts to support then Jakarta governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as "Ahok", as he fought for re-election.

"They told us you should have five Facebook accounts, five Twitter accounts and one Instagram," he told the Guardian. "And they told us to keep it secret. They said it was 'war time' and we had to guard the battleground and not tell anyone about where we worked."

The Jakarta election – which saw the incumbent Ahok, a Chinese Christian, compete against the former president's son Agus Yudhoyono, and the former education minister, Anies Baswedan – churned up ugly religious and racial divisions. It culminated in mass Islamic rallies and allegations that religion was being used for political gain. Demonstrators called for Ahok to be jailed on contentious blasphemy charges.

The rallies were heavily promoted by an opaque online movement known as the Muslim Cyber Army, or the MCA, which employed hundreds of fake and anonymous accounts to spread racist and hardline Islamic content designed to turn Muslim voters against Ahok.

Alex says his team was employed to counter the deluge of anti-Ahok sentiment, including hashtags that critiqued opposition candidates, or ridiculed their Islamic allies.

Alex's team, comprising Ahok supporters and university students lured by the lucrative pay of about $280 (£212) a month, was allegedly employed in a "luxury house" in Menteng, central Jakarta. They were each told to post 60 to 120 times a day on their fake Twitter accounts, and a few times each day on Facebook.

'Special forces'
In Indonesia – which ranks among the top five users of Twitter and Facebook globally – they are what are known as a "buzzer teams" – groups which amplify messages and creates a "buzz" on social networks. While not all buzzer teams use fake accounts, some do.

Alex says his team of 20 people, each with 11 social media accounts, would generate up to 2,400 posts on Twitter a day.

The operation is said to have been coordinated through a WhatsApp group called Pasukan Khusus, meaning "special forces" in Indonesian, which Alex estimates consisted of about 80 members. The team was fed content and daily hashtags to promote.

"They didn't want the accounts to be anonymous so they asked us to take photos for the profiles, so we took them from Google, or sometimes we used pictures from our friends, or photos from Facebook or WhatsApp groups," says Alex. "They also encouraged us to use accounts of beautiful women to draw attention to the material; many accounts were like that."

On Facebook they even made a few accounts using profile pictures of famous foreign actresses, who inexplicably appeared to be die-hard Ahok fans.

The cyber team was allegedly told it was "only safe" to post from the Menteng residence, where they operated from several rooms.

"The first room was for the positive content, where they spread positive content about Ahok. The second room was for negative content, spreading negative content and hate speech about the opposition," says Alex, who says he chose the positive room.

Many of the accounts had just a few hundred followers, but by getting their hashtags trending, often on a daily basis, they artificially increased their visibility on the platform. By manipulating Twitter they influenced real users and the Indonesian media, which often refers to trending hashtags as barometers of the national mood.

Pradipa Rasidi, who at the time worked for the youth wing of Transparency International in Indonesia, noticed the phenomenon when he was researching social media during the election.

"At first glance they appear normal but then they mostly only tweet about politics," he said.

Rasidi interviewed two different Ahok buzzers, who detailed using fake accounts in the same fashion as that described by Alex. Both declined to speak to the Guardian.

A social media strategist who worked one of Ahok's opponents campaigns said buzzing was a big industry.

"Some people with influential accounts get paid about 20m rupiah ($1,400/£1,069) just for one tweet. Or if you want to get a topic trending for a few hours, that costs between 1-4m rupiah," Andi, who only wanted to be identified by his first name, explained.

Based on its study of the buzzer industry in Indonesia, researchers from the Center for Innovation and Policy Research (CIPG) say all candidates in the 2017 Jakarta election used buzzer teams – and at least one of Ahok's opponents skilfully created "hundreds of bots" connected to supporting web portals.
The Baswedan campaign denied using fake accounts or bots. A Yudhoyono spokesman said they did not breach campaigning rules.

Slander, hatred and hoax
The authorities have made moves to crack down on fake news and the spread of hate speech online but buzzers, which operate in a grey area have largely slipped through the cracks.

Even the central government appears to employ such tactics. The Twitter account @IasMardiyah, for example, which Alex says was utilised by his pro-Ahok buzzer team, now posts a steady flow of government messages and propaganda for President Joko Widodo – mostly retweets about Indonesia's infrastructure and diplomatic successes, or the need to protect national unity.
Featuring an avatar of a young woman wearing a headscarf and sunglasses, the account tweets almost exclusively pro-government content with accompanying hashtags.

Recently the account has posted about Indonesia's election to the United Nations security council, fighting terrorism, boosting agricultural exports, a new airport in West Java, next month's Asian Games, but also on sensitive issues such as West Papua.

A presidential spokesperson was asked for comment by the Guardian, but did not respond.

A spokesperson from Twitter declined to specify how many fake Indonesian accounts it had identified or removed from its platform in the past year. The company said it had "developed new techniques and proprietary machine learning for identifying malicious automation".

The Guardian

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