S

treet musicians playing the traditional musical instrument angklung in Yogyakarta have lambasted the provincial administration for violating their rights by banning their performances at traffic lights.

Grouped under the Yogyakarta Angklung Association (PAY), as many as 15 angklung bands staged a rally on Monday in front of the provincial legislative council building on Jl. Malioboro to protest the ban.

They sang “Wakil Rakyat,” (People’s Representatives) a song composed by noted composer and singer Iwan Fals, to demand that Yogyakarta lawmakers fight for the people’s interests.

“[These angklung musicians] are not homeless, nor are they beggars. They possess ID cards and play music dressed in neat attire to entertain motorists waiting at red lights,” Sugiyarto, director of the Pandawa Legal Aids and Consultation Institution (LKBH), said at the rally.

The Yogyakarta governor issued through the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP) a decree banning angklung bands from playing on city streets, categorizing them as beggars who disturb motorists and pedestrians.

Angklung is a traditional musical instrument from West Java that is fashioned from bamboo.

The decree was issued based on the 2004 Bylaw on traffic, and the 2014 Bylaw on homeless people and beggars.

Sugiyarto argued that angklung bands have performed in Yogyakarta’s thoroughfares for years and are now considered an iconic fixture of the city.

These musicians do not disturb pedestrians on sidewalks as they never stay in one place for too long, he added.

“They are simply trying to make a living, which is guaranteed by the 1999 Law on human rights,” Sugiyarto said.

Yogyakarta provincial legislative council deputy speaker Dharma Setiawan, who met with protestors at Monday’s rally, spoke in defense of the musicians, saying they did not belong in the same category as beggars and the homeless.

And as a daily commuter of Yogyakarta’s streets, he claimed he never felt disturbed by their performances.

For Widi Ariska and her fellow Ariska angklung group band members, busking is her main line of work and source of income.

Ariska comprises six musicians who usually play at one of the traffic lights on Jl. Sultan Agung.

“This is my full-time job. I work every day from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and can earn up to Rp 100,000 [US$ 7.52] a day,” said the mother of two, who hails from Purbalingga, Central Java.

She was worried that if the city continued to ban musicians from playing on roadsides, she and her band members would lose their daily income.

Most of the city’s angklung street buskers come from Banyumas, Centra Javal, she conceded. However, some 40 percent is originally from Yogya.

Other angklung bands attending Monday’s protest echoed Ariska’s concerns, further arguing that banning them would only add to Yogyakarta’s unemployment rate and place a heavy burden on the city.

Angklung musicians usually perform in areas frequented by tourists, such as Yogyakarta’s iconic tourism spot Malioboro, the Tugu railway station and the North and South Squares.

Head of Yogyakarta Satpol PP, GBPH Yudhaningrat, said the administration is staying firm on its ban on angklung street bands.

He also disagreed with protestors’ arguments, equating street buskers with beggars because they ask people for money.

“If we do nothing about them [angklung musicians], then we are the ones breaking the law,” said Yudhaningrat.