Remember Saiful Mahdi Convicted Of The ITE Law Who Leaked The Scandal At Unsyiah Banda Aceh? DPR Agrees To Grant Amnesty

The Plenary Session of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (Photo: Nailin In Saroh/VOI)

JAKARTA - The Indonesian House of Representatives approved the granting of amnesty for the convict of the Electronic Information and Transaction Law (UU ITE) who is also a lecturer at the Syiah Kuala University (Unsyiah) Banda Aceh, Saiful Mahdi. The pardon was proposed by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi).

"Can we agree to the amnesty request as a suppression (presidential letter)?" said Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Muhaimin Iskandar, while chairing the Plenary Meeting for the Closing of Session I Year 2021-2022 at the DPR Building, Thursday, October 7.

All members of the DPR who attended the Plenary Meeting agreed with the granting of the amnesty.

Muhaimin explained that the reason the DPR immediately took a stand was because the application for amnesty for Saiful Mahdi was very urgent considering that it would enter a recess period. Usually, he said, the application for amnesty was carried out through discussion in Commission III of the DPR.

"Considering that the DPR is about to enter a recess, I am asking for approval in today's plenary session on the request for consideration from the President to the DPR," said the General Chairperson of the National Awakening Party (PKB).

Muhaimin added that the DPR's approval would soon be sent to President Jokowi to be able to follow up on granting amnesty to Saiful Mahdi.

"Furthermore, a written letter from the DPR RI was given to the President," said Muhaimin. An amnesty for Saiful Mahdi was proposed through Suppres Number 46/Pres/09/2021 dated September 29, 2021. The Suppres explained that Saiful was found guilty of defamation as stipulated in Law Number 19 of 2016 concerning Information and Electronic Transactions (UU ITE).

The case that ensnared Saiful stems from his criticism of the CPNS acceptance process at the Faculty of Engineering in March 2019. Through the WhatsApp group, Saiful wrote this.

"Innalillahiwainnailaihirajiun. Got the sad news of the death of common sense in the ranks of FT Unsyiah's leadership during the civil servant test yesterday. Evidence of technical determinism is very easy to corrupt?"

Saiful said that the participant files for lecturers to enter CPNS did not meet the requirements but were passed by the campus. For this case, he was sentenced to 3 months in prison and a fine of Rp. 100 million, a subsidiary of one month's imprisonment for that case. Saiful then filed an appeal but was rejected by the high court.