Entertainment spots want to open during Ramadhan
Ahmad Junaidi, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Thousands of demonstrators representing entertainment centers in the city staged a rally in front of the City Council building and the City Hall on Monday, demanding that the administration allow them to remain open during the Ramadhan fasting month for Muslims in a few weeks.
The secretary of the Entertainment Centers Owners Association Adrian Maelite urged the administration to allow the centers to operate after Tarawih prayer (about 9 p.m.) and before the Shubuh prayer (about 3 a.m).
"Do not close the centers totally during Ramadhan. As a metropolitan city, Jakarta needs them," Adrian told reporters.
Otherwise, he said, thousands of people would suffer economically as the centers employ more than 250,000 workers.
He said that in addition to direct employees, thousands of people, including street traders and parking attendants, also were financially dependent on the centers.
The city has 2,887 licensed entertainment centers, including 1,228 bars/restaurants, 144 discotheques, 12 night clubs and 263 karaoke halls.
Ramadhan will begin in the first week of November this year.
The demonstrators conducted a peaceful rally while listening to discotheque-style music pumping out of loud speakers that they had brought along.
Theresia, one of rally participants, urged the administration to allow the centers to operate during the Muslim's holy month so that she could pay her employees.
"My employees desperately need their salaries each and every month, and especially to celebrate the Muslim Idul Fitri holidays or Christmas," said Theresia, a mother of two children who works at the Cleopatra discotheque in Sunter, North Jakarta.
In recent years, the city administration, under pressure from Muslim fundamentalists, has increasingly curtailed the activities of entertainment centers, during the fasting month. Several places which remained open in the last two years were attacked by the white-robed operatives from the Islam Defender's Front (FPI) with almost total impunity.
Monday's protesters, who called themselves the Anti-Chaos Society, also urged the administration to dissolve the FPI as it had used violence to damage entertainment centers here.
Chairwoman of the Jakarta Women's Communication Forum (FKPJ) Chairun Nisa, who accompanied the demonstrators, also urged the authorities to give protection to the employees of the entertainment centers.
Separately City Governor Sutiyoso said the operational hours for the centers during Ramadhan was still being discussed by the administration.
"As for the FPI, let the police handle the case," Sutiyoso told reporters.
Two weeks ago, several entertainment centers in West Jakarta were damaged by the militant group, which was reportedly set up by New Order-linked elements within the police and military over the past years.
Recently, however, city police officers arrested at least eight FPI suspects over their most recent attacks.