Closure of sand quarrying plots pretested

BATAM: Hundreds of workers staged a protest on Monday at the office of Environment Impact Controlling Agency (Bapedal). The demonstrators protested the closure of sand quarrying plots by the local administration.

Accompanied by family members, the workers called the local administration’s policy “excessive”, and said that it did not represent their aspirations.

The protesters travelled in 20 trucks normally used to transport sand.

The administration moved to closed down illegal quarrying plots that have been blamed for damaging the environment.

“If the practices are deemed as damaging the environment, the government should have found a solution before closing the operations. We also see that the issuance of quarrying permits has been discriminative. They have handed permits out to certain groups of people while we, who have been operating there for years, have not been given permits,” protester Ernawati said.

Another protester, Mastur, said he had lost his daily earnings of Rp 40,000 over the past week.

“I joined the protest to demand justice. What solution will the government provide us?” he said. — JP