Unrelated video of Jokowi supporter misidentified as 'Indonesian communist leader's son'
- This article is more than one year old.
- Published on October 19, 2023 at 10:43
- 4 min read
- By AFP Indonesia
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The video was uploaded on Facebook on September 10, 2023, where it has been viewed more than 4,800 times.
The 49-second video shows a man in a black clothing talking to Indonesian President Joko Widodo, popularly known as Jokowi.
"If you do not allow us to fight in the field, then the law enforcement must do it," the man says, "because if not, we will lose our patience, then we will fight them in the field."
"Son of DN Aidit incites Jokowi to eradicate Muslims immediately," reads the Indonesian-language text on the clip.
Meanwhile, the post's caption partly reads: "DN. AIDIT's Biological Son Clearly is urging Civil War with Muslims...!!! He Is Provoking Jokowi To Repress Muslims...!!!"
It also urges people not to vote for Jokowi's political party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P).
DN Aidit is the top leader of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), who was killed during the anti-communist pogrom that engulfed the Southeast Asian country from 1965 to 1966 (archived link).
The mass killings of communist party members, as well as suspected communist sympathisers, led to the collapse of the now-banned PKI, once among the biggest in the world behind China and the Soviet Union (archived link).
It ushered in the decades-long rule of dictator Suharto, whose iron-fisted reign ended in 1998. But a quarter of a century later, communism remains taboo in the country with the world's largest Muslim population.
The video has racked up an additional 4.5 million views after it was shared with a similar claim on TikTok here, here and here; on Facebook and on video-sharing app SnackVideo.
Jokowi's volunteer
A reverse image search on Yandex, followed by a keyword search, found that an identical video was uploaded on X, previously known as Twitter, by a user called Andi Sinulingga on November 27, 2022 (archived link).
The post's caption reads: "Woah, woah brother, what are you saying, you sound like you are going to war. In his head, those who are different from him are the enemy. Mr. Jokowi is the President of the Republic of Indonesia, brother, not only the president of your group."
Multiple Indonesian news outlets -- such as Kompas, Tribunnews and Merdeka -- reported on the video in late November 2022, identifying the man in the video as Benny Rhamdani, a Jokowi supporter and the chairperson of the National Board for the Placement and Protection of Indonesian Overseas Workers, or BP2MI (archived links here, here and here).
According to the reports, the video was filmed when Jokowi attended an event at the Gelora Bung Karno stadium in Jakarta on November, 26, 2022, where thousands of Jokowi's supporters pledged their support for the president (archived links here and here).
"In the video, Benny asks Jokowi to act decisively, to use the law against those who are anti-government. If such step is not taken, Benny threatens that the Jokowi supporters would take the matter into their own hands," reported Kompas daily (archived link).
At no point in the video does Benny -- who also chairs the Jokowi supporters group Barikade 98 -- mention "Muslims" or calls to "eradicate Muslims" (archived link). None of the media reports about Benny's statement mention Muslims.
Not Aidit's son
According to his profile on the BP2MI website, Benny Rhamdani was born in Bandung, West Java, on March 3, 1968 -- three years after the Indonesian army captured and executed DN Aidit in Boyolali, Central Java, in November 1965 (archived links here, here and here).
Benny told AFP that he is not related in any way to DN Aidit. "I am certain that (the circulating misinformation) is done by opponents who are upset by my political stance and policies," he said on October 17, 2023.
His father is Adang Suherlan, retired from the Indonesian National Armed Forces, he told AFP.
Aidit had five children: two daughters -- Ibarruri Putri Alam and Ilya Aidit -- and three sons -- Iwan Aidit, twins Irfan Aidit and Ilham Aidit (archived links here and here).
Ilham, the only one of Aidit's children who still lives in Indonesia, confirmed this.
His twin brother, Irfan, passed away in 2009, Ilham said, while his two sisters live in France, and Iwan in Canada.
AFP previously debunked false claims that Jokowi attended a communist party event and that his son wore a T-shirt with a communist symbol.
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