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Protesters in Indonesia clashed with police on Thursday as thousands marched on parliament demanding tougher penalties for corrupt officials in a country long troubled by graft in both public and private sectors.
As night fell and most demonstrators had dispersed, violence erupted, with protesters hurling objects at police, who responded with tear gas and a water cannon.
Riot police had earlier held the crowd outside the closed gates of the legislature, where demonstrators paraded a meters-long flag in the red-and-white national colors and hung a banner reading, "The corrupt get rich while the people suffer.”
Some protesters, wearing motorcycle helmets and masks or bandannas over their faces, tried without success to break down the parliament gate, while others threw rubbish and other objects over it.
Jakarta police said they had deployed 18,500 officers across the capital as public anger grows over economic hardship and widening inequality.
“What we need is for the government to wake up,” Dian Purnomo, a 50-year-old author taking part in the protest, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). “They must provide what the people need, not force programmes we all know will only benefit them.”
Demonstrators want parliament to pass a bill, pending since 2008, that would allow the seizure of corrupt officials’ assets. Some at Thursday’s rally called for the death penalty for those convicted. They are also demanding an end to the government’s costly free school meals program, a flagship project of President Prabowo Subianto that has been dogged by corruption allegations and mass food poisonings.
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