Jenny Grant, Jakarta – The National Commission on Human Rights intervened yesterday on behalf of 14 students detained for holding a protest on Indonesia's national day.
"We have rung the Bogor police and requested that they release the students. We told them they made a mistake," said retired Major-General Koesparmono Irsan, a member of the commission and former deputy national police chief.
Eleven students were arrested on Sunday morning during a four-kilometre march through central Bogor, 60 km south of Jakarta, marking 52 years of Indonesian independence from Dutch colonial rule.
The students handed out paper flowers and carried banners with anti-government slogans. The banners accused the Government of ignoring human rights and of cheating during the May general elections.
Witnesses said authorities stopped the march. The students had their banners seized and were attacked by police, they said.
According to a statement from the Youth Front to Uphold the Rights of the People (FPPHR), which organised the action, a 15- year-old high school student sustained head injuries when police hit her. Bogor police arrested two more students involved in the rally at their homes late on Monday.
Bogor police yesterday said they were holding only 11 students. One officer said police were interrogating the students but had not yet charged them.
Local activist Pius Lustrilanang said the police saw the demonstration as a threat to state security.
"Our Government has a security policy, so they don't want to take a risk and let people on the street express their opinion," he said.
The FPPHR statement alleged that Bogor police chief Colonel Dadang Garnida led the attack on the students. Colonel Garnida told the Jakarta Post yesterday that he was disappointed the students had spoken out against the Government.
"While all Indonesians were celebrating the country's 52nd Independence Day anniversary, these men signed a protest discrediting our own Government," he said.
The Human Rights Commission said it would investigate the incident.