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'Support National Police' Facebook pages fail to get support

Jakarta Globe - November 9, 2009

While the numbers of Facebook fans getting behind a page supporting anticorruption deputies Chandra M Hamzah and Bibit Samad Rianto is rising, three groups supporting the National Police have not seen the same swelling of popularity on the social networking site.

Three Facebook pages titled "Support the National Police" had failed to garner a large online fanbase.

The first page, created by Hendra Kristiawan, had 54 members. The page administrator wrote he was not trying to create a fighting movement but he was just asking the public to "give the police a chance to prove which one is the angel and which is the devil."

Another page created by Rusli Haryanto had 14 members and the last page had only one member.

Numbers of 'Gerakan 1.000.000 Facebookers Dukung Chandra Hamzah & Bibit Samad Riyanto' (Movement of 1,000,000 Facebookers Supporting Chandra Hamzah & Bibit Samad Riyanto), which was launched after the two suspended Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) officers were arrested last week on suspicion of abuse of power, had continued to grow. On Monday afternoon, the group had in excess of 1,156,000 members.

In another tech-savvy response to the current KPK-Police saga, Anggodo Widjojo's ringtone, which was heard during a Constitutional Court hearing where taped telephone conversations outlining a plot against the KPK were played, has shot to the top of the nation's ringtone charts.

Laughter was stifled in the court and many members of the audience wore bemused smiles when the pop song, by the band Naff, titled "Akhirnya Kumenemukanmu" ("I've Finally Found You") was heard during one of the telephone conversations.

The ringtone is now the most downloaded in Makassar, South Sulawesi, and Solo, Central Java, beating songs from popular Indonesian bands, RCTI reported. In Makassar, dozens of coffee shop users had also spread the ringtone using Bluetooth connections.

An anticorruption activist told RCTI that the ringtone could also be used as a part of an anticorruption campaign, because it shows the public how a case broker operates.