[Nulgath]

‘Online taxi’ driver stripped and humiliated at Yogyakarta airport ...for violating pick-up rule

Cars for ride-hailing companies like Uber and Grab, locally known in Indonesia as “online taxis”, are generally allowed to drop off and pick up passengers at airports provided they observe some rules so as not to clash with conventional taxis.

One online taxi driver in the city of Yogyakarta was allegedly humiliated after he picked up a passenger where he wasn’t supposed to at the city’s Adisutjipto Airport.

According to reports, the driver, identified as F, dropped off a passenger at the airport’s Terminal B at around 8pm on Sunday. He then picked up another passenger from the terminal, despite there being a regulation that online taxis can only pick up passengers from the immigration office 200 meters from the terminal.

“Right at that moment, a provost military police officer told F to get out of the car, take off his shirt and apologize. The passenger said they were wrong, but (the officer) didn’t care,” said Yogyakarta online taxi drivers association spokesman Daniel, as quoted by Detik today.

In videos of the incident that have gone viral, F was shown to have been sitting topless inside the airport terminal, with many people watching, while being forced to say his apologies repeatedly.

What the videos did not show was that he was later allegedly made to apologize to every single conventional taxi driver at the airport before being let go at around 11pm.

“Usually (online taxi drivers who violate rules at the airport) are just told to leave or pay a fine. Why did they have to humiliate him? I deeply condemn this incident,” Daniel told Detik.

The Yogyakarta Police said they will launch an investigation into the incident, while airport management firm PT Angkasa Pura I said the airport’s conventional taxi drivers, not military police officers, were the ones who stripped and humiliated F in retaliation for supposedly stealing their customers.