TheJakartaPost

Please Update your browser

Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.

Jakarta Post

Police identify ‘provocateurs’ in worst anti-Chinese riot since 1998

The Tanjung Balai Police said on Monday they had identified the people they believed to be responsible for inciting the worst anti-Chinese riot in the country since 1998

Apriadi Gunawan (The Jakarta Post)
Tanjung Balai
Tue, August 2, 2016

Share This Article

Change Size

Police identify ‘provocateurs’ in worst anti-Chinese riot since 1998

T

he Tanjung Balai Police said on Monday they had identified the people they believed to be responsible for inciting the worst anti-Chinese riot in the country since 1998.

The authorities believe that the riot, in which a mob set alight and looted a dozen viharas and pagodas, had been triggered by messages inciting violence on social media. “We need to collect more evidence to arrest them,” Tanjung Balai Police chief Ayep Wahyu Gunawan said.

The police have so far named 17 suspects in the case, Ayep said, adding that nine had been charged with vandalism, while the remaining eight with looting.

While the police focus their investigation on the provocateurs and people on social media blame the excessive use of loudspeakers at mosques as the main trigger of the riot, sociologists have suggested that the incident may signal persistent anti-Chinese sentiment in the country.

In 1998, a mob killed and raped Chinese-Indonesians, whom it blamed for the economic crisis that led to then president Soeharto’s downfall. In 2006, students in Makassar rallied and called for the expulsion of Chinese-Indonesians after a local court convicted an Indonesian of Chinese descent for abusing his two maids and killing one of them. A year later, students of the same city staged another rally blasting racial hatred against Chinese-Indonesians after a lecturer was allegedly murdered by three Chinese-Indonesians.

Thamrin Amal Tomagola of University of Indonesia (UI) said the mob attack may have been triggered by ethnic sentiment rather than
religious issues, adding that the long negative perception of ethnic Chinese had existed in society for a long time.

Badarudin, a lecturer at South Sumatra University (USU), said the riot was not likely to have occurred spontaneously and that it may have been long planned.

“The problem is, Chinese people in Tanjung Balai are wealthier than the locals. The economic gap triggered the riot,” he said.

Tanjung Balai is a city near to the country’s fourth-biggest, Medan. Most of its dwellers work as fishermen, but the businesses are mainly controlled by residents of Chinese descent, which make up 15 percent of the total city populace.

Syafrizal, who chairs the Tanjung Balai chapter of the Indonesian Young Entrepreneurs Association, dismissed suggestions that racial hatred was behind the rioting last week. He acknowledged that fishery businesses in the city were controlled by Chinese-Indonesians, but their relations with other ethnic communities had been amiable.

“There is no problem. We have always lived in harmony,” he said, adding that the riot did not reflect the people of Tanjung Balai and the perpetrators were not locals.

The attack on the viharas allegedly started when a woman of Chinese descent who felt uncomfortable with the volume of the loudspeaker at a local mosque used for adzan (call to prayer), reprimanded the man in charge and asked him to lower the volume.

Circulating messages saying the woman had thrown rocks at the mosque and forcefully stopped prayers were believed to have fueled the anger of locals.

The angered group then attempted to confront the woman and tried to burn down her house, but were stopped by neighbors. The mob later sought nearby temples to vent their anger and eventually burned them and a few cars inside. Total losses caused by the riot are estimated to reach a billion rupiah. (fac)

{

Your Opinion Matters

Share your experiences, suggestions, and any issues you've encountered on The Jakarta Post. We're here to listen.

Enter at least 30 characters
0 / 30

Thank You

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. We appreciate your feedback.