Tatang Guritno, Jakarta – The Indonesian Survey Institute (LSI) has conducted a survey on the fatal October 1 tragedy at the Kanjuruhan football Stadium in Malang, East Java.
LSI Executive Director Djayadi Hanan said that the majority of the public believe that the 133 people who died in the tragedy died because of teargas fired by police.
"The majority (of respondents) know that the victims who died in the Kanjuruhan tragedy died as a consequence of the teargas fired [by police] which gave rise to panic. (A total of) 78.8 percent", said Hanan in a virtual release of the survey results on the LSI's YouTube channel on Thursday October 20.
Meanwhile, 55.2 percent of respondents did not agree with the use of teargas just because Arema football club supporters from Malang behaved in an anarchic manner, while another 31.7 percent agreed with the use of teargas and 13.1 percent did not answer or did not know.
"The majority agree that the police should not have fired teargas because they believed the situation was not anarchic, (at total of) 58.9 [percent of] respondents", said Hanan.
However 31.3 percent of respondents did agree with the police's use of teargas and 9.8 percent of respondents stated they did not know.
On the other hand, the survey found that the majority of the public believe there are two parties which should be held accountable for the incident.
"As many as 29.4 percent of respondents replied that the police [should be held accountable], and 24.3 percent of respondents believe that the league organisers must be held accountable", said Hanan.
The survey, which was held October 6-19, was conducted using telephone interviews with 1,212 respondents selected from a sample using a random digit dialing (RDD) method or a process of generating random telephone numbers, validation and screening.
This method has a margin of error of around 2.9 percent and a 95 percent level of confidence.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Survei LSI: Mayoritas Publik Nilai Korban Meninggal Tragedi Kanjuruhan karena Gas Air Mata".]
