12 Percent VAT Increase Demo Chaos, Police Denies Securing A Student

Central Jakarta Metro Police Chief Kombes Susatyo Purnomo Condro/ Photo: ANTARA

The news of the arrest of a student during a 12 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) demonstration at the Horse Statue, was denied by the Central Jakarta Metro Police Chief Kombes Susatyo Purnomo Condro.

"No one has been secured. We are trying our best to be able to carry out continuous negotiations," said Kombes Susatyo, ANTARA, Friday, December 27.

Susatyo said that from the start his party had asked the protesters to comply with the rules of the time limit for demonstrations.

The police at 18.00 WIB gave a continuous appeal to the field coordinator (Korlap) to be able to disperse the action in an orderly manner.

However, one group even resisted orders from security officers, burned tires, and threw until one security guard was injured.

"One of our personnel on behalf of Brigadier Heri, Sabhara, Central Jakarta, is currently being treated by medical personnel due to injuries from being thrown in the head," he said.

He also explained that the police continued to negotiate, appeals were up to two warnings to the participants of the action who never broke up after crossing the rules for the time limit for the demonstration.

"Then we continue to carry out negotiations, appeals, warnings, first warnings, then the second warning, until 19.30 WIB we carried out soft driving," he said.

Susatyo said that his party was forced to push back the masses from BEM SI by spraying water cannon using the dew method.

"We do not use tear gas, we use water cannon, that is also water cannon which does not shoot directly, but uses dew, siraman method," explained Susatyo.

The police finally managed to push back the mass of the action and traffic flow around the Horse Statue area back to normal.

The police deployed 611 joint personnel to secure student actions in order to refuse an increase in Value Added Tax (VAT) of 12 percent in the Horse Statue area, Central Jakarta.

"In order to secure the student action to reject the 12 percent Value Added Tax (VAT) increase in the Horse Statue area and its surroundings, we involved 611 joint personnel," said Central Jakarta Metro Police Chief Kombes Police Susatyo Purnomo Condro in Jakarta, Friday.

The joint personnel are from Polda Metro Jaya, Polres Metro Central Jakarta, TNI, Pemda DKI and related agencies. They are placed at a number of points around the Monas Horse Statue roundabout in front of the State Palace.