Security forces quell student demonstration

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Security personnel quelled another demonstration by hundreds of Gadjah Mada University students here yesterday and will charge eight of them.

Yogyakarta military commander Col. A.R. Gaffar said the students would face charges of inciting people to boycott the general election.

"We arrested them after careful consideration and I'm responsible for maintaining public order here," Gaffar said.

The government and scholars have said that citizens have the right to vote or not vote, but those persuading others not to vote are criminals.

The 1985 general election law says that people preventing others from exercising their right to vote on polling day can be imprisoned for up to five years.

Agitation charges may also be leveled at those persuading people to boycott general elections. They can be sentenced for up to six years in jail.

Yesterday's demonstration was a continuation of rallies in support of the ousted chief of the Indonesian Democratic Party, Megawati Soekarnoputri. The police arrested 24 students on the first day of protests on Tuesday, but released them last night.

The students, calling themselves the Committee for Indonesian Democracy, marched to their campus yesterday morning, demanding that the police release their friends.

At noon, riot police dispersed the demonstration. Witnesses said that at least five students were knocked unconscious by the police.

The chief of Sleman, Yogyakarta, district police, Lt. Col. Andi Djaka defended the police's use of force against the students, saying that the authorities were trying to stop the demonstration escalating.

A poll conducted last year by Riswandha Imawan, a lecturer at the university's School of Social and Political Sciences, says that 60 percent of the 1,000 students surveyed will boycott the election. (amd)