Volunteer group Teman Ahok (Friends of Ahok) has been one of driving forces behind Governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama’s re-election bid, having already collected almost 1 million Jakartan voter IDs to make Ahok eligible for an independent run in 2017.
However, the group’s reputation took a hit this weekend when its two co-founders, Amalia Ayuningtyas and Richard Handris Saerang, were denied entry into Singapore this past weekend.
Amalia and Richard were both invited to a food festival held by Indonesian expats in Singapore. The poster for the event initially included a chance for the expats to gather their IDs for Ahok, but Teman Ahok claims that they asked for the removal of that aspect of the event after learning that they weren’t allowed to carry out any political activity in Singapore.
“We agreed that there wouldn’t be any [political] attributes and so on… We wanted to get together with our Indonesian friends there, who want to know what’s going on in Indonesia,” Amalia said in a press conference on Sunday, as quoted by Kompas.
Both Amalia and Richard departed for Singapore on Saturday. However, they were denied entry after being suspected of planning to carry out political activities in Singapore. Amalia and Richard were held by Singapore’s Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) without being able to contact their Teman Ahok friends back home. Amalia also said that officials from the Indonesian Embassy (KBRI) in Singapore were not able to represent them because it was their day off.
Meanwhile, Teman Ahok grew restless in Jakarta after they found out Amalia and Richard were being detained in Singapore. The group then posted a message on social media warning the Singapore Embassy in Jakarta that they’d hold a protest in front of the embassy if Singaporean authorities wouldn’t release their co-founders.
The next morning, KBRI officials came to Amalia and Richard’s aid and they eventually left Singapore for Indonesia at 10:15am.
“Our friends at KBRI came at 7am (Sunday). With them representing us, it was easy to arrange our flight home, even though we regret that they (KBRI) didn’t come on the first day. This would’ve been avoided. But we thank KBRI for taking care of us,” Amalia said.
Teman Ahok also issued an apology on social media about the threatening tone they took in their previous post, which has since been deleted.
“For the statement [of threatening to hold a protest in front of the Singaporean Embassy], we apologize. This is a lesson for us, for ours is a young movement. We apologize to all our friends who were bothered by the statement,” Teman Ahok Spokesman Singgih Widyastomo said as quoted in the post above.
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