The Bandung District Court has sentenced Buni Yani, the man accused of uploading an edited video of a speech by former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, to one and a half years in prison for violating the 2011 Information and Electronic Transactions (ITE) Law.
“The defendant has violated the law by deliberately changing, adding, cutting, transmitting, damaging, deleting, moving, hiding electronic information and or an electronic document owned by a person or public,” Saptono said, as quoted by state news agency Antara.
The name Buni Yani became closely associated with the high-profile blasphemy case involving Ahok after it emerged that Buni was the person who had first uploaded the video of the former governor’s speech in a provocative manner. The video later sparked nationwide outrage among Islamist groups and eventually resulted in blasphemy charge and conviction of Ahok.
The panel of judges at the court said that Buni had changed the duration of Ahok’s speech, taking parts of it out of the original context. The original video lasted 1 hour 48 minutes and 33 seconds, while the clip Buni posted on his Facebook account was only 30 seconds long. The judges added that Buni’s action had caused inter-religious tensions and the defendant did not show remorse during the trial.
The prosecutors had initially demanded a two-year prison term on Buni, but judges decided for a lighter sentence, noting that Buni had no past convictions and has a family to support. Buni’s lawyer plans to appeal the verdict.