translated version for statements from @rizzydraws' family.

gistfile1.md

Updates:

• 2018-06-18 16:22:00 GMT +7: Reworded some parts.
• 2018-06-19 17:10:00 GMT +7: Another statement has been sent out by Riz's family. It has been added to this gist.
• 2018-06-19 17:17:00 GMT +7: Reformatted into Markdown for easier reading.
• 2018-06-19 17:35:00 GMT +7: Added a third statement from Riz's family.
• 2018-06-19 17:59:00 GMT +7: Added a fourth statement
• 2018-06-20 20:34:00 GMT +7: Added a fifth statement.
• 2018-06-20 20:39:00 GMT +7: It seems like Riz has taken back control of his account. My work ends here.

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Statement 1

https://twitter.com/rizzydraws/status/1008462843228966912

May peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.

For those who have helped our family member Riz by sending him well wishes I would like to say thank you very much.

We are members of Riz's extended family. Right now Riz is doing fine. We hope that he will fully recover soon.

We would like to explain what happened to Riz over the past few years.

Riz worked as an animation teacher in a highschool since 2015. He likes his job as a teacher because he loves to share his own knowledge. He also works as a freelance artist.

For Riz, sharing his own knowledge gives meaning to his life. His daily life goes as usual until one day at the end of 2015 where he encountered two people claiming to be from the police. He was forced to come into their cars, even when he didn't want to.

Inside the car, they told Riz, "Don't you dare mess around. People like you ruin [our society]. We'll come after you!"

At first, he wasn't afraid because he believed it was just an empty threat.

In the early 2016 a wave of intolerance and anti-LGBT people started to form in the Indonesian. government. At this time Riz is planning for ways to leave along with his partner.

At the end of the year Riz had to move out because people kept coming to his house and trying to take a peek inside.

Everything went well until the middle of 2017 when the people who came after Riz threatened him that they'll report [him] to the government. If the school Riz worked at was found out for employing people like Riz, Riz is afraid that the school's accreditation will be under threat, or even worse, the school will be closed.

For the betterment of the school and his students, Riz resigned. Since then, he really relied on his Patreon. And to be honest, he didn't like having to use Patreon because he didn't want to keep begging others for money.

He just want to work and help his mother.

November 2017, his new place is yet again approached by a bunch of strangers and he had to move again. Riz is getting more paranoid.

Early 2018, Riz's mother was brought to the hospital for cancer, and because of that, his depression worsened. At that time Riz + his friends was also still finding out ways to move out.

Riz + his friends agreed to set up a gofundme page.

Because of Riz's increasingly unstable condition, he angered a lot of his friends that wanted to help him. In the end, that page was maintained by his friend in America.

Riz left that page alone because he also wants to look for his own way to get out. But day after day, Riz's mental condition worsened because he couldn't get a new job and having to rely on Patreon.

Riz's mental condition got even worse when he found out that a lot of LGBT people got arrested and another series of anti-LGBT protests appeared.

Fast-forward to June this year, Riz drew that comic as a form of his venting. He felt a little better after his tweet was shared by @shoe0nhead.

But not long after that our friend told Riz about threats of [publishing] Riz's home address.

At first Riz ignored that because they thought they were joking. We tried to contact our friend but they said it's a serious problem.

Riz had a breakdown.

Riz's parents tried to calm him down. He looked calmer that time. They also went outside looking for food [to give him], but after they went back home they found Riz on the ground, having a seizure.

Turns out Riz drank some detergent. We rushed him to the hospital + called closed friends and family to inform the others.

We also just knew Riz talked about this on Twitter so we asked some close friend/family member to DM those who retweeted Riz when it happened.

Riz was conscious for a time until doctors got some of the detergent out. The doctor said it could be bad if he had ingested a lot of it. Our friends and family immediately informed others today.

Riz's liver had swollen and he had to stay in the hospital for now.

We're sorry that we couldn't post any pictures of Riz because we really worry about his safety, especially after that threat.

Before that we had been in contact with the American police, but they ignored it because Riz is not an American citizen.

We are deeply angered at those who tried to terrorize Riz, to the point of hurting him. We hope that there's justice.

Riz will be brought back home to his extended family's hometown, far away from city life and civilization.

We deeply apologize if Riz had wronged any of you, and thank you for your attention.

May peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.

• Riz's extended family.

gistfile2.md

Statement 2

https://twitter.com/rizzydraws/status/1008577824830078976

May peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.

We, as family members of Riz would like to announce that Riz is finally conscious, but still needs additional treatment because his liver is still swollen.

Per his request, effective immediately all of Riz's social media accounts, except for this Twitter account, has been deactivated.

Riz states that he doesn't want to continue being in social media because his drawings have ruined his friendships and made him look odd by other people.

But we as close friends and family members of Riz, we swear on God's name that Riz is a good person.

Some of us knew the events that Riz experienced 12 years ago, where he was bullied by his seniors and some thugs in junior high school. Since then he played an active role to stop violence amongst children.

We realised that some artworks drawn by Riz might be a bit indecent, but we also realised that he drew those artworks as means to fund his mother's medication.

We also plan to close Riz's Patreon account for his safety. But we will have to discuss this plan with Riz first, because it's his only source of income.

Riz just wants to protect and give the best for the people he loves, but doesn't know how. Please accept our sincere apologies if Riz had made a mistake in the past.

If Riz's condition gets better, he will be immediately sent back to his extended family's hometown.

Thank you for your attention. May peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.

• Riz's extended family.

gistfile3.md

Statement 3

https://twitter.com/rizzydraws/status/1008955948528832513

We from Riz's extended family are happy to announce that Riz's condition is getting better.

Thank God, the doctors have extracted all the remaining toxins, which explains what our son had ingested.

Inside the digestive system, the doctors have found a mixture of Baygon, water, and soap. Thank God, the doctors said the amount Riz had ingested was very little since Riz vomited out most of them before it could get into the digestive system.

Riz was unconscious due to shock. When he arrived at the hospital the doctors performed a gastrointestinal decontamination to get the remaining toxins out. The doctors also stated that before [he ingested the toxins] he also took a dangerously high dosage of Paracetamol.

The doctors stated that Riz had a history of hepatitis and kidney disease due to his improper eating habits & his lifestyle, so his liver had swollen. We can confirm that because Riz also had a history of obesity since he was 6.

There's also an intestinal inflammation, but the doctors told us it's unrelated to what he had ingested, but it's because of Riz's really improper eating habits for the past few months (eating spicy food, changing diets, anorexia, etc.)

We can conclude that Riz was treated in hospital due to poisoning and shock. We would also like to apologise to @GamingAndPandas for the misunderstanding due to our limited English-speaking abilities.

We apologise sincerely for any lack of information that we give. We really care for our son's safety. Thank you for your attention. May peace and blessings of Allah be upon you.

gistfile4.md

Statement 4

https://twitter.com/rizzydraws/status/1008973422548770816

We would like to make a statement regarding the computer donation run that our son held back in 2015.

Before that, we would like to apologise for any misunderstandings, we hope this information will be useful.

In early 2015, Riz got a job as an animator and a storyboard artist at a production house. But due to the production house's minimal amount of facilities, Riz had to bring his own laptop for production purposes.

The Laptop that Riz had at the time was an HP Pavilion G4-1112tx that his father gave him back in 2012. Because his father was laid off before he retired, and therefore didn't receive any pension, Riz dropped out of college.

Riz started looking for jobs in various sectors until he received an offer at a production house for animation in early 2015, the job that our son dreamed of.

But due to his inadequate laptop specs and its age, the laptop broke down due to constant amount of heavy work like 3D rendering.

At this time Riz had two job, first as a part-time teacher, and second as an animator.

At the time Riz had very little income, not enough to fund him and his family's daily needs. We from his extended family had tried giving financial help, even if we could only help so little.

Riz was under threat of being terminated by his production house due to lack of tools.

Riz was hopeless, and he reluctantly had to beg for money for his new laptop from a GoFundMe page.

Thank god, one of Riz's friends spread the news about the GoFundMe page, and Riz was able to raise $800 and can continue his work until late 2016.

A few years later, Riz set up a gofundme page for a new house, by the request of his father. Back then Riz's house was approached by some strangers so that made Riz's father very paranoid and angry at him.

Riz finally made that page, and the campaign failed.

The fundraiser failed because Riz was reluctant to spread the page and his father planned the whole thing in a rush.

Thank God, they were able to move to a new house thanks to the help of a member of our extended family.

The reason why Riz's father didn't ask us first was because of his pride. In our culture, it's considered an embarassment for a husband if he fails to provide for his family.

But we allowed it due to the nature of the situation.

We hope that our explanation can make things straight. We swear by God's name and all of our extended families that our son had good intentions and just want to give his family the best.

Right now Riz is conscious and God willing, if he gets much better, he will be sent back to his extended family's hometown.

We sincerely apologise if there are any misunderstandings due to Riz's actions. Thank you for your attention, please pray with us and hope that our son will fully recover.

gistfile5.md

Statement 5

https://twitter.com/rizzydraws/status/1009245140639105024

We would like to apologize regarding the misinformation caused by Riz.

A few days ago, we've heard some rumors directed at our son. Because of that, we hope that this explanation will be useful.

• We will not share Riz's birthplace for his security, but we can state that he lives in a town/city near Jakarta.
• It's true that members of the LGBT community cannot be imprisoned in Indonesia, but the main problem was Riz was met by two people who claimed to have intimidated him.
• Riz did try to draw some indecent drawing to help his mother. We attach a photo of his mother in this tweet. For the laptop donation campaign, Riz's sibling made that page in November 2015 before Riz was intimidated by the people/thugs [who did so] in the name of religion.¹
• We can confirm that Sharia law only operates fully in [the province of] Aceh, but some radical organisations can still intimidate[/harrass] marginal communities in the place where Riz lives.
• We never knew how the interactions between Riz and friends of his kind was like. But if Riz had said something wrong in the past we from his extended family would like to extend our most sincere apologies.
• In the place where Riz lived, several flyers + banners were spread promoting an anti-LGBT rally which was sponsored by a certain political party.
• The comic drawn by Riz was a form of his venting and a form of amalgamation of the tragic experiences that he had as member of the LGBT community.
• There were lots of anti-LGBT news articles published outside of Aceh, like a series of arrests and political parties attacking the LGBT community.

Throughout 2016 and 2017, Riz have received multiple forms of intimidation from several people from the anti-LGBT community which forced him to move out twice. (Jan 2016 and Nov 2017).

We would like to apologise if Riz had acted impulsively, please understand his mental condition dropped since then.

We would like to clear up some rumours that have been throws at our son. We only hope for the best for Riz, just like Riz wants the best for his family.

Thank you for your attention.

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Translator's notes

Footnotes

1. I would assume that this was the same two people who have been harrassing and doxxing him over time. ↩