PIB threatens to sue police

UJUNGPANDANG, South Sulawesi: The local chapter of the New Indonesia Party (PIB) threatened to sue the police on Wednesday for asking its campaigners to cancel its gathering only hours before it was about to begin.

Party secretary Juliadi, however, claimed party officials notified the police of the gathering plan as required by law.

"The police should have informed us long before the gathering if they wanted to cancel it ... We've been harmed politically, so we'll press charges against the police," he said.

According to Juliadi, as a "small party" PIB had been let down twice by the government. He said its first disappointment was when the state-run post office sent a party document a week late to Jakarta.

He did not identify the document.

The police's abrupt notification of the cancellation, Juliadi said, prompted thousands of supporters to leave the campaigning site. (30)