UI student faces charges for burning party flags
UI student faces charges for burning party flags
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A freshman of the University of Indonesia's mathematics and
natural sciences school was detained by the police on Friday
morning for allegedly burning the flags of major political
parties last Wednesday.
Edward Noya, 18, is facing multiple charges under the Criminal
Code. He is accused of destroying the property of others and is
being charged under Article 170, which carries a maximum
five-and-a-half years in prison.
He will also be charged with interfering with the elections,
obstructing traffic and with setting a fire that could have
endangered others.
Edward was apprehended by city police for questioning at 2
a.m. while on his way home from a friend's 22nd birthday party at
Bengkel Cafe, which is next to the Jakarta Police Headquarters in
the Central Business District,.
"We were on our way home to Depok when three Kijangs stopped
us. Several men got out of the vans and told us to join them for
'a trip'," birthday boy Erik Akbar told reporters on Friday.
Erik said the 15 students refused to get in the vans, but the
men, who did not identify themselves as police officers, forced
them to accompany them to police headquarters.
"The police kept us upstairs (in the general crimes
department) for three hours and did not let us buy medicine for
our friends, who were ill," Erik said.
The police later freed 14 of the students.
On Wednesday, some students gave speeches at the university's
Salemba campus, Central Jakarta, where they later burned flags of
the Golkar Party, the United Development Party (PPP) and the
Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), condemning the
"products of the authoritarian New Order regime".
On Friday, police spokesman Sr. Comr. Prasetyo said the police
had detained only Edward based on photographs and a video
recording of the event, which showed Edward burning the flags.
"The arrest was in line with legal procedure, as the officers
obtained an arrest warrant before detaining the students. But as
they wanted to make sure that it was Edward on the video, the
officers showed the warrant to Edward upon arrival at
headquarters," Prasetyo claimed.
"So it was not a kidnapping," he added, in response to the
students' claim that the police had abducted them.
As an act of solidarity, about 30 students, including some of
the initially detained students, staged a protest in front of the
police headquarters on Friday afternoon, demanding Edward's
release.