BEM UI Locked Out Of Twitter After Criticizing President Jokowi

TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The University of Indonesia student executive body (BEM UI) chairperson Melki Sedek Huang on Monday alleged that the organization’s Twitter account had fallen victim to hacking over a critical post against President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo related to the upcoming 2024 presidential election. 

According to Melki, they were unable to log into the account after the organization’s criticism entitled ‘Jokowi Belongs to Political Parties, Not the Public’ was uploaded on Sunday. He firmly suspects that it is a form of silencing public criticism if proven to be intentional. 

“All the gadgets logged in to the official BEM UI Twitter account were suddenly logged out last night. We are still attempting to log in again,” he said to Tempo on May 22. “Any attempts to silence us will not silencer fright us.”

Jokowi’s Neutrality Questioned Ahead of Major Election 

Previously, BEM UI criticized Jokowi's steps which were seen as biased in the 2024 presidential election, as they believe Jokowi had openly shown a non-neutral attitude several times such as repeatedly declaring support for a number of presidential election candidates and using state facilities for the benefit of political parties. 

BEM UI asserted that Jokowi should prioritize serving the people over the agendas of political parties.

“[the President’s] actions that repeatedly prioritized the political party could undermine democracy in Indonesia. If allowed to continue, the president will only be a party officer, not a servant of the people," the BEM UI stated. 

 M JULNIS FIRMANSYAH|TIKA AYU

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