Provincial legislative councilors have voiced the need to retain public order agencies but have called for reform in their work in the field.
“Public order agencies help maintain security and safeguard government institutions,” West Sulawesi legislative council speaker Hamzah Hapati Hasan said as quoted by Antara on Saturday.
His comment came in the wake of the Tanjung Priok violence in Jakarta last week, which had claimed the lives of three and injured more than 130 people.
As public order officers were involved in the unrest, calls were voiced for the disbandment of public order agencies (Satpol PP).
Hamzah said the agency was still needed in West Sulawesi in particular, as well as throughout Indonesia in general, to ensure the implementation of regional regulations.
However, he called for an evaluation of public order agencies’ dealings with the public in executing government policies.
He said the regulations that facilitated the agency’s work should be re-evaluated so that they would not trespass into the police’s domain of authority.
“The government needs to redefine the mechanisms the agency uses in the field. The agency’s operations must prioritize the public,” he said.
The Tanjung Priok violence erupted on Wednesday morning when around 1,000 public order officers marched to the memorial site of respected Muslim scholar Arif Billah Hasan bin Muhammad Al Haddad, better known as Mbah Priuk, who spread Islam in Jakarta in the 18th century.
The authority, in a statement issued after the clash, was seeking to dismantle only the buildings, which were said to have been built illegally, and retain the tomb to make way for an expansion by PT Pelindo.
They faced resistance from local residents including those who claimed themselves to be heirs of the revered Muslim figure. All three of the dead were the public order officers, while another 69 were injured. Adding to the injury list were 10 police officers and 55 civilians.
Inzani Muhammad, a member of Bengkulu legislative council, also disagreed with calls to disband public order agencies.
However, he urged the agency to clean up its act.
“The agency needs to lose this image [of violence]. They must improve their performance in restoring public order — the job they are assigned to do,” said the councilor of the National Mandate Party (PAN).
He said the agency’s evictions of street vendors usually smacked of violence.
“If [public order officers] employed a persuasive approach at the Mbah Priuk complex, there would have been violence,” he said in Bengkulu as reported by Antara.
“People are prone to being provoked into violence.”
In Surabaya, the local Public Order Agency threatened to pull down an advertising billboard behind the zoological, which was larger than the dimensions stipulated in the regulation.
“I sent a letter to the billboard owner, urging him to meet the size requirement,” agency head Arif Budiarto said, adding the billboard should have been 20x10 meters, not 24x12 meters.
“We intended to cut the billboard but the owner said they were in the process of submitting an application for a permit over the size,” he said.
He said he would have it demolished if the city spatial planning office did not permit the structure.
