Celebrity musician, failed politician and Nazi-apparel aficionado Ahmad Dhani is officially filing an appeal for his 1.5-year prison sentence, which was handed to him at the conclusion of his hate speech trial in the South Jakarta District Court yesterday.
Dhani's lawyer, Hendarsam Marantoko, says he is filing the appeal today. If approved, the appeal trial will take place at a high court, and, should there be another appeal after that, at the Supreme Court.
Dhani was sent to the Cipinang Penitentiary in East Java to serve out his 1.5-year prison sentence immediately following the conclusion of his trial yesterday. Despite his incarceration, he is still eligible to take part in April's election as a Parliamentary candidate running in East Java for the Gerindra Party – at least while his appeal is ongoing.
"If he files for appeal, that means the legal decision is not final. That means the KPU (General Election Commission) is not able to execute [Dhani's removal from the election]," KPU Commissioner Wahyu Setiawan told CNN Indonesia.
Following his conviction, Dhani has not indicated whether or not he would continue to run for a seat at the House of Parliament (DPR).
Dhani was found guilty of violating Indonesia's controversial Law on Electronic Transactions and Information (UU ITE) for spreading hate speech online through a series of tweets that were posted to his official Twitter account, @AHMADDHANIPRAST.
The tweets related to the politicized allegations of blasphemy against Basuki "BTP" Tjahaja Purnama (aka the former Jakarta Governor formerly known as Ahok). Dhani was reported to the police in March 2017 by members of BTP Network, a group of volunteers working for BTP and former Vice Governor Djarot Saiful Hidayat during their reelection campaign, specifically for a tweet in which he wrote, "Anyone who supports the religious blasphemer is a bastard who needs to be spit on in their faces".
The prosecutors in the case had demanded that Dhani be given a two-year sentence (a demand Dhani claimed was evidence that the government was prosecuting him to get "revenge" for the two-year sentence BTP was given at the conclusion of his blasphemy trial).
The musician, most famous for being the frontman of the rock band Dewa 19, is also a member of the Gerindra party and tried to win the position of vice regent of Bekasi during the 2017 regional election (he claimed he'd bring over the Red Hot Chili Peppers if he won, yet somehow still managed to lose). He had been an outspoken critic of BTP during his time in office and often took to Twitter to make crude, provocative statements about the former governor as well as President Joko Widodo (he was also reported for alleged hate speech against the president in 2016).