The protests in Indonesia caused by economic difficulties have caused a hard response from the police, which caused concerns that the Southeast Asian nation could return to its authoritarian past.
As police trucks have been painted with spray with slogans to apply the law, President Pabowo Subianto has denounced demonstrations as “betrayal and terrorism” while seeking to calm a broad discontent.
Thousands have taken to the streets in the main cities of the last week, sometimes linked by protesters that set fire and government looters looting the houses of politicians. At least 10 people have died and hundreds have been injured in the resulting disturbances.
On Wednesday, a coalition of student unions met with legislators and demanded an independent investigation into police violence, foreshadowing new protests.
The frustrations in the third largest democracy in the world have been building since Pabowo, a former military and businessman general, took power last year, implementing austerity measures that have reduced billions of public services such as medical care and education.
Many common Indonesians criticize the government for mainly serving the interests of the rich elite, even when youth unemployment rises and wages.
The initial wave of demonstrations began on August 25, with thousands gathering outside the country's parliament to denounce a marked example of such inequality: a housing allocation of $ 3,000 for legislators that was almost 10 times the minimum wage in Yakarta.
The discontent became violence when a 21 -year -old motorcycle taxi driver was fatally beaten by a armored police vehicle that accelerated the crowd.
Pabowo and his police chief apologized for the incident, and one of the officers involved in the accident has been fired.
At a televised press conference, Pabowo emphasized that the right to the Pacific Assembly should be protected but that “the State must intervene to protect its citizens.”
Neither these measures, nor the president's promise to climb the advantages of legislators, have suffocated the large amount of public anger, which has been received with a police response that human rights groups have denounced as excessive.
“No one should die while exercising their right to freedom of expression and a peaceful assembly,” said Montse Ferrer, regional research director of Amnesty International for the East and Southeast Asia.
On Monday, the United Nations requested an investigation into the “supposed use of unnecessary or disproportionate force by security forces.”
Since the demonstrations began, the Indonesian police have used tear gas, water cannons and rubber bullets against protesters, some of whom have receded the cocktails and Molotov rocks. The authorities have arrested more than 3,000 people.
Two deaths have been attributed to police repression: a Pedicab driver in the city only died last week while being treated for exposure to tear gas, and a university student who died on Sunday after being beaten by the police.
Such incidents have resurfaced the distrust of the police force of the Indonesian public of the police force, said Jacqui Baker, a scholar of Indonesian security and surveillance at the University of Murdoch in Perth, Australia.
“Common people have long repeated a said” report a chicken, loses a buffalo “, which means that if you involve the police in the routine police … you are likely to suffer more material loss than the original robbery,” he said.
In recent years, civic groups have accused the police of dozens of extrajudicial murders and torture.
Many of the country's police problems are derived from a period of three decades of authoritarian domain under the then President Suharto that ended in 1998.
With the police remained to political interests even after the democratization of the country, Baker said, “the historical sense of law has generated a deeply corrupt, violent and predatory force that is widely hated by common people.”
President Prabowo himself is accused of human rights abuses, such as the kidnapping of dissidents, under the government of Suharto. Critics say that authoritarianism is now withdrawing the country by expanding the participation of the military in civil institutions. Pabowo denies these statements.
