Police in the Indonesian capital have arrested seven people after men wielding machetes and sticks attacked rights protestors, wounding at least 15, reports said.

Nine people were questioned on Friday for their involvement in the attack on Thursday but two of them were released, Jakarta police detective chief Bambang Hendarso Danuri said in the Jakarta Post.

Fifteen people were injured when scores of black-uniformed men, some armed with sticks and machetes, attacked a group of about 100 Jakartans campaigning for the poor.

The men, from a group calling itself the Native Jakartans Brotherhood Forum, attacked rights protestors organized by the Urban Poor Consortium after they met officials of the National Commission on Human Rights.

Television pictures aired Friday showed women and children weeping in fear as the men smashed a truck and equipment belonging to the consortium. Fifteen people from the consortium were taken to hospital but were released the same day.

The consortium has claimed a recent court verdict in favor of its lawsuit against the Jakarta administration, the city police and military over a crackdown on pedicabs and demolition of shanty towns has been ignored.

The pedicabs are banned in most parts of the capital but the court ruled that their seizure by city authorities is illegal and that eviction of the poor from state-owned land is inhumane. But the consortium said pedicab raids and eviction had continued despite the verdict.

Human rights officials are frequently in the firing line in Indonesia and Thursday's attack was the second on a rights groups in a month. Earlier this month scores of unidentified attackers ransacked the office of The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras).