Thousands protest public order raids

JAKARTA (JP): More than 3,000 disadvantaged people, mostly street singers and pedicab drivers, rallied in front of City Hall on Thursday, protesting the public order raids mounted against them by the city administration.

Arriving in their pedicabs, the protesters, grouped under the umbrella of the Urban Poor Consortium (UPC), demanded that the administration close down the Kedoya "rehabilitation" center in West Jakarta where street workers netted during public order raids are detained.

Using a sound system mounted on the bed of an open truck, the protesters also demanded the closure of the Jakarta Public Order Office's store in Cakung, North Jakarta, where pedicabs and merchandise confiscated during public order raids are kept.

"The Kedoya prison and the Cakung store are an insult to humanity. The present administration is more ruthless than the Dutch colonial administration," the group's coordinator Edy Saedy said.

The group earlier in the day visited the Kedoya center in an effort to free those of their comrades being held there, but failed to do so as the center was tightly guarded.

They then moved to the Cakung warehouse, where they pulled down the warehouse's name board.

The protesters were almost involved in a clash with several Betawi (native Jakarta) people who were allegedly hired by the administration to confront them.

City Public Order Office chief Firman Hutajulu denied that his office had engineered a confrontation between the Betawi people and the protesters.

Hundreds of civilian police auxiliaries (Banpol) and police officers managed to calm down the protesters.

Separately, Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso promised on Thursday to continue public order raids against street traders and pedicab drivers.

"Pedicabs must disappear from Jakarta," Sutiyoso told the city's five mayors, and the heads of the city's 65 districts and 265 subdistricts at City Hall. (jun)