Jakarta – The demonstration titled "Dark Indonesia" (Indonesia Gelap) in front of the Malang city Regional House of Representatives (DPRD) in East Java descended into chaos on Tuesday February 18 when protesters managed to break down the parliament's front gate
The thousands of protesters from the Greater Malang Student Executive Council (BEM) and the Greater Malang Civil Society Alliance initially held a burning action. Following this, tensions at the demonstration increased until finally the protesters broke down the front gate and succeeded in entering the grounds of the Malang city DPRD.
The students were met by Malang DPRD Speaker Amithya Ratnanggani Sirraduhita and a number of other political party faction representatives. But the demonstrators were still not satisfied with the results of the negotiations. As a result, chaos broke out again.
The protests threw stones, bottles and broken glass in the direction of the DPRD building. The police, stationed directly in front of the entrance, also tried to drive them away.
One of the speakers, Daniel Alexandre Siagian, said there were at least 14 points in the protesters' demands. One of them is protesting Presidential Instruction (Inpres) Number 1/2025 on Expenditure Efficiency in the Implementation of the State Budget (APBN) and Regional Budgets (APBD) for the 2025 fiscal year.
"This budget cutting policy could have a negative impact on vital sectors such as education, healthcare, public services and poverty management", Siagian said. In addition, they also criticised the performance of President Prabowo Subianto and his bloated cabinet.
"In the end, the facts show that the depravity on the side of the government continues to occur in all parts of the education, healthcare, public service, agrarian affairs, human rights sectors and especially from the PSN sector which are not yet on target", he said.
The 14 points in the demonstrator's demands included a demand to halt the free nutritious meals (MBG) program, stop militarisation and the repressiveness of the authorities and reject the planned revisions to the TNI (Indonesian Military) and Polri (Indonesian Police) laws.
The Students also demand that the government stop national strategic projects (PSN) which cause misery for the ordinary people and damage the environment, as well as rejecting the recent ratification of revisions to the Minerals and Coal Mining (UU Minerba) Law. (frd/wis)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Massa Aksi 'Indonesia Gelap' Jebol Gerbang DPRD Kota Malang".]
