Indonesia – DISACCORDS

Pekanbaru: 200 prisoners at large after Indonesian mass jailbreak

Prison buildings seen through a broken window at Sialang Bungkuk prison in Pekanbaru, Riau province.

7 May – Indonesian authorities have said about 200 inmates remain at large two days after a mass escape from an overcrowded prison on Sumatra island.

The breakout at Sialang Bungkuk prison in Pekanbaru on Friday occurred when prisoners were let out of their cells to perform prayers. They broke through a prison door, overwhelming the few guards on duty.

Police said 242 men had been recaptured by Sunday morning, leaving about 200 still at large.

Authorities were initially uncertain how many prisoners had escaped, estimating the numbers at between 100 and 300.

Police said some of the men surrendered or were returned by their families and others were captured by local residents, police and soldiers.

Various officials have said the prisoners were angry about poor conditions and treatment. The prison has a capacity of about 360 but was holding more than 1,870 men, according to a local police spokesman, Guntur Aryo Tejo.

Tejo said four of the escaped inmates were apprehended by police late on Friday about 60 miles from the prison, on a bus heading for West Sumatra province.

Hundreds of police and soldiers have been deployed in the hunt for the prisoners.

Jailbreaks are common in Indonesia, where overcrowding has become a significant problem in prisons that are struggling to cope with poor funding and an influx of people arrested under a “war on drugs”.

Friday’s escape was the biggest since July 2013 when about 240 prisoners, escaped after a deadly riot at a prison in Medan, the capital of North Sumatra province.

Jakata: Police Officers Injured as Inmates Take Control of Gorontalo Prison

2 June – Rioting inmates temporarily took control of the Gorontalo Prison in Gorontalo, Sulawesi, after attacking prison officials and police officers and inciting a melee that lasted from Tuesday night to the early hours of Wednesday (01/06). Two police officers were injured during the incident.

Gorontalo Police spokesman Adj. Sr. Comr. Bagus Santoso told Detik.com the trigger for the incident was an altercation between police officer 2nd Brig. Kurniawan Noho and an inmate, Edy Sukamidin, which happened when the latter refused to attend a court hearing for an assault case on Tuesday afternoon.

Other inmates helped Edy fight the police officer. Shortly after, Kurniawan was rushed to the hospital with severe wounds in his thigh and calf after being stabbed repeatedly.

The incident caused a riot which lasted throughout the night and well into the early hours of Wednesday. The inmates managed to take control the prison just before dawn after a series of clashes with security officers.

Prison officials and police officers were evacuated from the scene for safety reasons.

Another police officer was also injured after prisoners pelted rocks and shot makeshift arrows at police officers taking guard outside the prison.

Police finally managed to subdue the rioters on Wednesday morning. “We have taken back control of the prison,” police spokesman Bagus said.

Bagus said police are searching the prison for sharp weapons to prevent more clashes, meanwhile Edy the provocateur will soon be moved to the North Sulawesi Police’s detention facility.

Indonesia: Riot Breaks Out at Bandung Prison After Inmate’s Suicide

23 April – The alleged suicide of an inmate at a prison in Bandung, West Java, sparked a riot early on Saturday morning (23/04), after fellow inmates mistakenly concluded that he had been murdered, local media reports.

Part of the Banceuy Narcotics Prison was set alight during the riot, causing extensive damage to the front of the facility. Two cars and two motorcycles were also destroyed in the blaze, before the arrival of three fire trucks.

At least five of the nearly 600 police officers deployed at the prison were injured when inmates threw stones at them, before reportedly setting fire to the building.

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Indonesia: Police Shoot Locals During Anti-Mining Riot in East Java

25 Nov – Anti-mining protestors have been hospitalized in Sumberagung Village, Banyuwangi in East Java after police opened fire on a riot protesting the presence of Bumi Sukesindo mining operations in the area.

Rioting began Wednesday afternoon after a meeting between locals and Bumi Sukesindo, the Banyuwangi District Sector Office and representatives of the local government at a hotel. After a brief stalemate rioting resumed around 8:00 p.m. until the early hours of Thursday morning.

“We’ve had enough. We just want the gold mining company closed,” RD, a local who refused to give his name, told tempo.co on Thursday morning. RD did not clarify what has prompted the change of heart among the community to the company which has been operating in the area since 2007.

“It was like a war,” Achmad, a local, said on Thursday.

Hundreds of Banyuwangi police officers were deployed to calm the rioting. Officers opened fire on the protestors after part of the crowd began setting houses alight and destroying motorcycles owned by Bumi Sukesindo.

Locals reported five people were injured by police fire, although police maintain only two were harmed.

“From what the officers have told me, there are only two locals [hurt by the shots], but I am still checking the real situation at the scene,” Adj. Sr. Comr. Bastoni Purnama said.

“There were only 400 officers deployed in the riots, completely outnumbered by the mass — thousands of them,” he said.

He also claimed that police “had no choice” but to use guns as the company’s assets, due to Bumi Sukesindo’s status as a legal mining company, are considered local assets and must be protected.

All injured protestors, including three allegedly assaulted by police, are receiving medical treatment

Indonesia: Vandals attack Go-Jek office as discontent simmers inside and out

2 Nov – On Sunday, at around 10:35 local time, two men on a motorcycle drove up in front of one of Go-Jek’s offices in South Jakarta and shattered a window by throwing an object, or by firing a shot at the building. The office was empty at the time. No one was hurt, and the two suspects were able to escape.

In case you don’t live in Indonesia, Go-Jek is an on-demand “Uber for motorcycles” app that lets users book rides and other services like food delivery and parcel transport at the click of a button.

Go-Jek was not available for comment, though the firm did publish a note on its Facebook page about the incident.

We would like to assure you that the incident is being handled by the responsible authorities and that all of Go-Jek’s facilities are equipped with CCTV cameras […] No one was hurt in the incident […] We have not found bullets at the location, only a part of a screw driver which is thought to have been used by the suspect.

Before the CCTV footage became available, the items collected at the scene led police to assume that the weapon used was homemade, and that the tip of the screwdriver was used as the projectile. The suspects fired only a single shot, police concluded. CCTV footage obtained by the police later seems to suggest the projectile was not fired at all, but hurled at the window by hand.

Go-Jek and similar motorcycle services have become popular in Indonesia’s capital, leading them to recruit thousands of new drivers throughout the year. However, some groups of informal motorcycle taxi drivers (called ojek) have not reacted well to the emergence of app-based services. Ojeks have traditionally been the ones to perform these kinds of jobs, without being part of a regulated system. Many of these informal service providers see companies like Go-Jek as a threat to their income and livelihoods.

Past clashes now lead many to speculate that the simmering conflict between informal ojek drivers and Go-Jek might be the cause for this act of vandalism.

Anti-Gojek-Kalibata

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Malaysia: Solidarity with Khalid Ismath, imprisoned for criticizing the government on Facebook

18 Oct – Solidarity with Khalid Ismath from Indonesian comrades

Statement of PEMBEBASAN (Pusat Perjuangan Mahasiswa untuk Pembebasan Nasional—Center of Student Struggle for National Liberation).

Free Khalid Ismath! Destroy Militarism! Eliminate the Sedition Act!

For Liberation and Solidarity!

Democracy and capitalism will not be able to walk along because capitalism does not need democracy. For capitalism, democracy will only disrupt the process of capital accumulation, so, even if democracy must exist, then it must be limited, controlled, dwarfed—so it can do no harm to the capital accumulation process. That kind of democracy is always inherent in any capitalist power, anti-criticism and repressive.

It is also endemic in the constitutional monarchy in Malaysia. Efforts to shut the criticism down is done by using the legislation instruments. We know Khalid Ismeth, that since October 7, 2015 has been imprisoned by the police in Ayer Molek, Johor, Malaysia.

The arrest of Khalid Ismath is just because he wrote his criticism against the government and the Sultan in Malaysia on his facebook status. Khalid criticized over the arrest of Kamal Hisham Jaafar through social media. Kamal Hisham try to uncover the truth behind the Sultanate evil empire, and he had been in Singapore since hunted by the government (Sultanate of Johor).

That is where Khalid Ismath expressed his support for Kamal Hisham, while criticizing the Sultanate of Johor. Soon, Khalid was arrested by the police with two charges; violating the section 233 of the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia (Section 233 Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Act 1998) and Sedition Act 1948 as he encourage others to join in solidarity. Although two days after the arrest Khalid were released, he has been arrested again with sedition act.

Next, Khalid was brought to the court on October 13, 2015 for trial. Johor Baru Sessions Court charged him with 11 counts under the section 233 of the Communications and Multimedia Act 1998 and 3 counts under the Sedition Act 1948.

Repression and anti-democratic act as practiced by the Sultanate of Johor provide a conclusion that there is no democracy for the majority of the people. For Sultanate of Johor, the meaning of democracy is exactly the same as the capitalistic democracy, it never give space for the people.

Capitalism does not object to dictators and dictatorships while they are in conformity with the interests of the accumulated profits. In his book, State and Revolution, Lenin, one of the leaders of the Russian Revolution in 1917, said that democracy in capitalism is democratic to investors that its economic position is free from the control of the people. It is enough to give them a councils, without the right to fire the representatives of their own choosing; enough to give them the ‘democratic’ institutions as a representative functions for their aspirations, without the urge to directly engage and understand it. That artificial democracy was built to keep people from politics, because the politics that is desirable by the capitalist is politics that serve the interests of the investment and the capital accumulation. It consequences on the need of political stability that leave the process of capital accumulation undisrupted. The political stability that is desired by capitalism and capitalist government agencies is enforced through the instrument of legislation and mobilization (military repression). These character appears in capitalist government around the world. Also practiced by the Sultanate of Johor when responding to the criticism issued by Khalid Ismath, and probably also will befall to anyone who dares to criticize the Sultanate of Johor in Malaysia.

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Manado, Indonesia: University Building burnt as Direct Solidarity for Pandang Raya

14 Septmber (via 325) Through fire, we sent our direct solidarity to those fighters and arrested comrades who stood against the eviction of the State in Pandang Raya, Makassar, South Sulawesi. We deeply feel connected with those people, although we haven’t seen each other. But your stories, your spirits and your courage, reached us here who are hiding in the dark and awaiting our momentum to hit back at the enemies.

We were waiting for a while, discussing and questioning ourselves. We want to bring the urban war against the enemies into the next level by training ourselves to be more violent. But we couldn’t hold ourselves down and watch all this violence by the State against our sisters in struggle. We won’t let ourselves only be throwing words of solidarity but doing nothing, when you are facing a war to defend your lives and your homes. NO! We are not civil anarchists. We are the angry ones. Continue reading “Manado, Indonesia: University Building burnt as Direct Solidarity for Pandang Raya”