Protesters from the Papuan Student Alliance (AMP), the Papuan Central Highlands Indonesian Student Association (AMPTPI) and the Indonesian People's Front for West Papua (FRI-WP) held a protest action in front of the Horse Statue in Central Jakarta on Thursday December 1.
In the middle of the action however, they were involved in a clash with police who were guarding the demonstration.
According to Kumparan's observations at the location, in the beginning, the demonstration proceeded peacefully. The demonstrators could be seen standing in a circle listening to speeches from the command vehicle. The police meanwhile, stood guard outside the circle.
During one of the speeches however, a uniformed officer suddenly entered the circle and tried to climb up onto the command vehicle, and then remove protest materials such as a flag pole and the like.
Seeing this, the protesters tried to hold on to the materials. In the midst of the chaos, Central Jakarta district police operations division chief Assistant Superintendent Saufi Salamun was hit by a rock.
The situation however did not continue for long and after a few moments returned to normal.
The demonstration was held to convey a number of demands including opposing Special Autonomy and the creation of new autonomous regions (DOB) in Papua.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was " Mahasiswa Asal Papua Bentrok dengan Polisi saat Demo di Patung Kuda".]