ASEAN Beat | Society | Southeast Asia
Hundreds rallied in Malang, East Java, the place a stadium crush final month led to the deaths of 135 individuals.
A protester sits on a wheelchair representing the victims of the October 1 soccer stampede, throughout a rally commemorating 40 days for the reason that tragedy, in Malang, East Java, Indonesia, November 10, 2022.
Credit score: AP Picture/Rizki Dwi Putra
Hundreds of soccer followers have held protests in Indonesia’s East Java province, demanding a extra thorough investigation of the group crush at a stadium that claimed the lives of 135 individuals final month.
Supporters of the native soccer group Arema FC began the rally with a prayer in Malang metropolis in East Java earlier than marching down town’s essential thoroughfare. Reuters reported that some protesters carried coffins and indicators that learn “All this due to tear fuel.”
The gang crush occurred after police fired tear fuel with a view to disperse Arema FC followers who swarmed the pitch at Kanjuruhan stadium in anger after their group was defeated by its arch-rival Persebaya Surabaya.
Within the instant aftermath of the Malang stampede, the worst stadium catastrophe since 1964, Indonesia’s President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo ordered the suspension of Indonesia’s premier soccer league. Later, he vowed to enhance stadium security and “totally rework” the way in which soccer is run within the nation.
The federal government has not sat on its fingers. Within the aftermath of the crush, the Indonesian Nationwide Police eliminated the police chiefs of East Java province and Malang district and suspended 9 different officers. Authorities have additionally introduced legal fees in opposition to six individuals for negligence, together with the pinnacle of the league’s administration, PT Liga Indonesia Baru, two Arema FC officers, and three cops who allowed or ordered officers to make use of tear fuel.
However the protesters who attended yesterday’s rally in Malang, which additionally included individuals from different areas of Java, mentioned that the federal government needed to do extra to carry these accountable accountable.
“Do arrest and choose all actors behind and the executors on the sector from the Kanjuruhan tragedy on October 1,” the Arema FC followers mentioned in a written assertion, The Related Press reported. “Make the Kanjuruhan tragedy a critical human rights violation and never only a minor human rights violation.” It additionally referred to as for the federal government to supply compensation for “all losses suffered by the sufferer and the sufferer’s household.”
A authorities fact-finding group concluded final week that the “extreme” and “indiscriminate” use of tear fuel by the police had prompted a frenzied rush for the stadium exits. It additionally concluded that the nationwide soccer affiliation PSSI had been negligent and ignored laws, and urged its chairman and government committee to resign.
Not less than a part of the anger could possibly be defined by the simmering discontent with the Nationwide Police, specifically the truth that cops are very not often held to account for the extreme use of power. In an article for The Diplomat final month, Aisyah Llewellyn quoted Usman Hamid, the pinnacle of the human rights group Amnesty Indonesia, as saying that the stadium crush mirrored a broader discontent with the police.
“Police are not often charged and tried for extreme use of power whereas police management usually says that they are going to consider such incidents,” he mentioned. “The Indonesian police sadly have a protracted monitor document of extreme use of power, together with the misuse of ‘less-lethal weapons’ reminiscent of tear fuel and water cannons, significantly in the previous couple of years.”
Given this monitor document, it’s unsurprising that members of the Indonesian public, significantly these immediately affected by the Malang tragedy, are so reluctant to offer the police, and the federal government as a complete, the advantage of the doubt.