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July 27, 2010 Made Arya Kencana & Candra Malik SBY Appearance Ends With Another Embarrassed Child <b>Bali and Solo.</b> President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been caught up in yet another incident in which a child has been belittled at a public event. Presiding over a national art competition at the Tampaksiring Presidential Palace in Gianyar, Bali, on Monday, Yudhoyono found himself having to comfort a weeping eighth-grader after she was publicly snubbed for a prize. Local artist and competition juror Putu Wijaya had previously announced Agustina Eka from Yogyakarta as the second-place winner in the competition. But as she went up to collect her prize, another juror, Purwacaraka, said it was a mistake and that the award belonged to Jakarta's Richard Herlambang. Agustina immediately burst into tears, prompting Yudhoyono to call her back up to the stage, comfort her and give her, quite fittingly, a consolation prize. Monday's incident followed two more serious ones that occurred on Friday at celebrations to mark National Children's Day. An hour prior to the start of that event at the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah theme park in East Jakarta, two students were barred from taking to the stage to read an eight-point declaration drawn up by a congress of 300 children. Event organizers said the order to drop the five-minute speech came from the Presidential Palace, but no reason was given at the time. However, an advocate representing the children's congress said the palace may have dropped the speech due to the eighth point of the declaration: that Indonesian children be protected "from the danger of tobacco through the banning of cigarette advertisements, increasing the price of cigarettes, putting more prominent warning signs on cigarette packaging, and restricting children's access to cigarettes." Event organizers later brushed off the notion, saying the declaration reading was among other performances that had to be dropped because the entire event, scheduled for three hours, had to be shortened to two. Also at Friday's event, a presidential guard allegedly smacked a 9-year-old girl in the back of the head after she shook hands with Yudhoyono. The allegation went viral on Twitter, but Linda Gumelar, the state minister for women's empowerment and child protection, denied it had ever happened. She said she had been walking with National Education Minister Muhammad Nuh, directly behind the president and First Lady Ani Yudhoyono, at the time of the alleged incident. "I was in the middle of the pack, very close to the president and the kids, so there's no way I would have missed something like that," she said on Monday at another event to mark National Children's Day in Solo. [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
