Splashy! Chairman Of PBNU Said Aqiel Siradj Says China Is Not A Communist But Saudi Arabia, Really?

JAKARTA - John Pribumi's Facebook account uploaded a picture with the face of the General Chairman of the Nahdlatul Ulama Executive Board Said Aqil Siradj.

In its narrative, the account provides the statement "Said Aqil: China is not a communist country, is it an Arab country ? Are the people who are fanatical towards NU still not aware, if their lord is getting more Ambyarrr ???".

Reporting from turnbackhoaks.co.id site, this information is an old hoax that is circulating again and comes from the Blogspot domain site. Not a credible medium.

Said Aqil's statement that China is not a communist country but Saudi Arabia is a false claim. The source of the claim comes from the Embarxi Blog site (embarxi.blogspot[dot]com) which was published on July 23, 2019.

As reported by Tempo, the Embarxi Blog did once carry an article with the title 'Said Aqil: China Is Not a Communist Country, Is Communist Instead Arab?' However, based on Tempo's search on the Google search engine, there was no news from any credible media containing statements from Said Aqil regarding the claims contained in the title.

"The Embarxi blog is not a credible media site because it only takes content from other media sites without mentioning the source. In addition, the blog does not include the person in charge and the company address", wrote turnbackhoaks.co.id.

Based on this search, Tempo also found original news quoted by the Embarxi blog.

The news was published by the Times Indonesia website on July 17, 2019. The content of the article in the Embarxi blog above is the same as that of the Times Indonesia news. However, the news in the Indonesian Times was entitled "KH Said Aqil Siradj: China is not a Communist State".

In this news, Said Aqil stated that it is not true that China is a communist country. The discourse that China is a communist country, according to Said Aqil, is only part of the political scenario of several groups that want to overthrow the government of President Joko Widodo or Jokowi.

This is also considered a natural case for Indonesia as an adherent of a democratic system where there is potential for the use of religion and belief as political tools.

"There is no atheism, communism, etc., there is no more. All of these have become political interests”, said Said Aqil during a book review event on 'Islam Indonesia and China, the Struggle for Indonesian Santri in China' at the PBNU office, Central Jakarta.

After reading it to completion, there was not a single Said Aqil statement that "it is Saudi Arabia that is communist", either in the news in the Indonesian Times or an article on the Embarxi blog.