YouTube content creator Ferdian Paleka has been arrested following a week long manhunt following outrage when he posted video where he performed a transphobic prank.
Paleka, who has more than 130,000 subscribers on his YouTube channel, was arrested on the morning of 8th May following a week long search. The YouTuber had been wanted for questioning following a video where he and his friends prepared food packages containing brick matter and rotten food, before they gave them out to trans women. They also referred to the women in the video as bencong, a pejorative term for trans women in Indonesia.
'We want to survey whether or not the bencong are on the streets in this fasting month.' He said in his video. 'If we encounter them, we'll give them the packages. But if they're not around that means the city is safe from them.'
Paleka and his friends handed the fake care packages over to several trans women, and were seen laughing at many of them whilst doing so.
The video received immediate backlash online, with many of his followers and members of the general public complaining about what he did. In response Palek released a fake apology video, where he stated that he would only release a real apology if he received 30,000 likes. 'I personally would like to apologise for what I've done. Not.' He mocked in his 'apology' video.
This was not the first time that Paleka has been accused of making a video that unfairly targets members of the LGBTQ+ community, and he has also been reported to have made videos that degrade women, and sex workers.
The video was made in Bandung, in Indonesia, and as such is subject to certain laws. Ferdian, and his two accomplices who appeared in the video with him, were charged with online defamation under the Information and Electronic Transactions Act. If found guilty he could face up to four years in prison. He has also been charged with deliberately breaking the law and bringing harm to other, which could be punishable by up to 12 years in prison.
In light of these charges, and facing a prison sentence, Paleka went on the run, before finally being arrested on the Jakarta-Merak toll road in the early hours of the morning. Paleka was found after the police monitored his family, who tried to help him flee. He had dyed his hair, and shaved off his moustache in an attempt to avoid detection.
One of the victims of Paleka's prank, 39 year old Sani, said that she and a number of the others chose to report Paleka and his friends to the police to 'create a deterrent effect for the perpetrator so that such things would not occur again in the future'.
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