On May 2, Farid tweeted criticism of Teten Masduki, writing “People help the people; the rulers help entrepreneurs. How about this, Kang Teten Masduki? How low can you go?”. Muannas Alaidid, an Indonesian Solidarity Party politician, filed a police report against Farid on May 27 alleging he spread false and misleading information on social media. Muannas is the chairman of the Indonesian Cyber, an organisation known for filing reports against prominent public figures.
Despite the charges, Teten accepted Farid’s criticism explaining that the ministry needs to expand its cooperation with different partners to tackle new challenges.
AJI said: “AJI urge Muannas to withdraw the police report and call the police to not proceed the report. What Farid did was exercising his rights as a citizen to express his opinion and Indonesian constitution protects those rights."
The IFJ said: “The IFJ condemns the use of filing a lawsuit to silence journalists. It is critical for government officials and politicians to respect citizens and journalists freedom of expression and withdraw the lawsuit."