Indonesias president cancels China trip as protests continue

By Stefanno Sulaiman

JAKARTA, Indonesia (GWN) -Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on Saturday cancelled a deliberate trip to China as days of protests unfold additional outdoors the capital Jakarta, with a number of regional parliament buildings set ablaze.

Prabowo had been due to attend a “Victory Day” parade in China on September 3 to mark the eightieth anniversary of the end of World War Two following Japan’s formal give up.

The protests, the first major check for Prabowo’s practically year-old authorities, started in Jakarta this week over lawmakers’ pay and worsened after a police vehicle hit and killed a bike rider.

“The president wants to continue monitoring (the situation in Indonesia) directly…and seek the best solutions,” presidential spokesperson Prasetyo Hadi said in a video assertion on Saturday.

“Therefore, the president apologises to the Chinese government that he could not attend the invitation.”

Another consideration in cancelling the trip was a United Nations General Assembly session in September, Prasetyo said.

In the sunshine of the protest, short-video app TikTok, which is owned by China’s ByteDance, said on Saturday it had suspended its live function in Indonesia for a few days.

Jakarta had this week summoned representatives of social media platforms, including as Meta Platforms Inc and TikTok, and told them to enhance content moderation because disinformation had unfold online. The authorities says that such disinformation has spurred protests against it.

FIRES

Earlier on Saturday, protesters precipitated fires at regional parliament buildings in three provinces – West Nusa Tenggara, Pekalongan metropolis in Central Java and Cirebon metropolis in West Java, local media reported.

Local media Detik.com said protesters had looted parliamentary workplace gear in Cirebon and police fired teargas to disperse protesters in Pekalongan and West Nusa Tenggara.

Three people had been killed on Friday in an arson assault on a parliament building in Makassar, the capital of South Sulawesi province, Indonesia’s catastrophe management company said.

State news company Antara said the victims had been trapped in the burning building, and the catastrophe management company said two people had been injured after leaping out of the building to escape the fire.

Local media outlet metrotvnews.com reported one additional death from a fire at the Makassar parliamentary building. This couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Protests also occurred on the vacation island of Bali, where teargas was used against protesters.

Local media also reported that a crowd had looted the Jakarta home of Ahmad Sahroni, a lawmaker from the political celebration NasDem, and taken gadgets including family furnishings.

Sahroni has confronted accusations of responding insensitively to people calling for parliament to be dissolved amid anger over lawmakers’ allowances. Sahroni has labelled such critics “the stupidest people in the world”.

($1 = 16,250.0000 rupiah)

(Reporting by Abd Rahman Muchtar in Makassar; Writing by Stefanno Sulaiman; Editing by William Mallard)