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President blocks communist imagery
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Members of the Pancasila Front demonstrate against the National Symposium 1965 event at the Farmers' Statute in Jakarta recently. They claimed the event promoted by now-defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI). (Antara/Rivan Awal Lingga)
P
resident Joko “Jokowi” Widodo has instructed law enforcers to enforce the laws against the use of communist imagery, National Police chief Gen. Badrodin Haiti has said.
"Currently, a lot of merchandise and activities reference communism. The President has given a direction to take legal action against this," Badrodin said at the State Palace on Tuesday, adding that the prevention of the dissemination of communism, Leninism and Marxism in Indonesia was based on a decree of the Temporary People’s Consultative Assembly issued in 1966.
"That has already clearly been instructed. The law enforcement will be assisted by the Indonesian Army as well," he said.
Attorney General Prasetyo added his institution would follow up any kind of indication or effort to revive communism in the country. "Efforts to promote this viewpoint must be prevented," he asserted.
Earlier, the police released two people detained for selling T-shirts of German-based trash metal band Kreator in Blok M Mall and Blok M Square in South Jakarta, which were emblazoned with the hammer and sickle, similar to the logo of the defunct Indonesian Communist Party (PKI), after finding no evidence of treason.
Meanwhile, a number of events, shows and discussions on the 1965 communist purge have been shut down since last year.
The latest controversy involved the third ASEAN Literary Festival in Jakarta last week in which protestors accused event organizers of aiming to promote communism and demanded the annual event be shut down following discussions planned on the 1965 tragedy and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) issues. The event proceeded under police protection.
Badrodin said the police would also use the Criminal Code to enforce the law related to communism, therefore, he added, the police could enforce the law against the distribution of communist imagery in the form of T-shirts and other material like movies promoting communism. (bbn)
