Reinforcements rush to troubled Maumere
Reinforcements rush to troubled Maumere
JAKARTA (JP): Police have sent reinforcements to Maumere in East Nusa Tenggara to restore peace and order in the city which was rocked on Friday by unrest that left one person dead and seven others injured.
"Reinforcements are on their way there," National Police Chief Gen. Banurusman Astrosemitro told Antara news agency in Kupang, the capital of East Nusa Tenggara, yesterday.
He said he had given the go ahead to the East Nusa Tenggara police to send a Mobile Brigade unit in order to deal with the situation in Maumere, the biggest city on Flores Island. He did not disclose how large the reinforcement deployment would be.
The police chief was speaking at the El Tari airport in Kupang as he was about to board a plane to take him back to Jakarta. He had been on a two-day working visit in the province.
Antara reported that a group of people went on a rampage on Friday, pelting the Maumere District Court, setting fire to two cars and four motorcycles, and ransacking a number of houses.
The police precinct in Sikka district was also the target of their anger.
The report did not identify the dead person, nor how he was killed. Nor did it give details on the seven injured, or how they sustained their injuries. It has been reported, however, that besides rioting there were also fist fights during the unrest.
Antara said the upheaval was triggered by ongoing litigation against a man accused of tarnishing the local Roman Catholic Church. Details of the court case were not immediately available.
On Friday, the government prosecutors in the case demanded a 42-month jail term for the defendant, identified only by his initials DW.
Many people who were following the hearing considered the punishment being sought as too light. Word spread quickly across town, stirring more anger, and the riot followed.
Banurusman yesterday appealed for calm in Maumere and cautioned that such incidents could spread into religious or ethnic conflicts, Antara reported.
Flores is a predominantly Roman Catholic island.
A similar incident occurred in May last year in Ende, a city south of Maumere. Then protesters, unhappy at the government prosecutors' decision to push for a one-year jail term for a young man accused of tarnishing a church, set fire to the local prosecutor's office. (emb)