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Violence in Sorong, more protests in Papua as anger over racism spreads
“Today’s rally is bigger than yesterday's. Gunshots are everywhere,” a Catholic priest said in Sorong on Tuesday.
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Thousands rally in Jayapura, Papua, on Monday to express their anger over racial abuse. (Antara/Gusti Tanati)
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iolent unrest with gunshots has been reported from Sorong in West Papua, while protests over racism also occurred in other cities of the province and in the neighboring province of Papua on Tuesday.
The Jakarta Post received reports that residents in Sorong, South Sorong, Merauke, FakFak and Biak rallied to protest racial abuse and violence against Papuan students in several cities of Java over the Independence Day weekend.
The protesters demanded that the government and other Indonesian citizens outside the region put an end to racial abuse against Papuans.
A religious figure living in Sorong, West Papua, Lukas Sasior, told The Jakarta Post that thousands of residents had staged a rally in front of the City Hall on Tuesday. “Today’s rally is bigger than yesterday’s. Gunshots are everywhere,” he said. “I’m now at home, so I cannot confirm whether we have victims [of the gunshots] or not.”
The riot in Sorong also led to a jailbreak in which at least 258 of 547 inmates escaped from the city’s prison.
On Monday, a riot had erupted in Manokwari, West Papua, while nearly 10,000 people had rallied in Papua’s capital Jayapura to express their anger over the racial abuse, in which some security staff called Papuan students in Surabaya, East Java, “monkeys” and arrested them after shooting tear gas into the students’ dorm on Saturday.
No unrest had been reported in Manokwari and Jayapura as of Tuesday afternoon.
