Indonesian soap star Nikita takes on firebrand cleric Rizieq over Covid-19 rule flouting
- Islamic Defenders Front head comes in for harsh criticism by popular soap opera star over his mass rallies, which flout Covid-19 rules
- Jakarta military commander threatens to break-up the front in a rare rebuke
Perhaps most concerning, Rizieq, the leader of the Islamic Defenders Front, has presided over meetings of tens of thousands of his followers, ignoring health protocols in a country where there has been more than 488,000 infections and over 15,600 deaths.
In the face of government inaction against Rizieq’s mass gatherings, the soap opera star Nikita Mirzani, who is known for ignoring another kind of protocol in Indonesia – dressing modestly – boldly criticised him, angering his supporters, who threatened to send 800 people to raid her home over the weekend.
“The police, military, government were stunned to see the massive turnout to welcome Rizieq and didn’t quite know what to do. But Nikita came out to criticise him,” said Najib Azca, a lecturer in the sociology department at Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta.
In a post on her Instagram account, which has since been deleted, Nikita described the massive crowds that greeted Rizieq at the airport upon his return home as “excessive”.
“The welcome was insane, traffic jams everywhere,” she said, adding that one of her friends missed her flight because of the crowds.
“[Rizieq] always makes trouble but he gets a [warm] welcome,” she said.