Security forces quell student demonstration

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)