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Police detain high schoolers in 'chaotic protest'. KPAI says most 'clueless' about the issues
The Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI) says that most students were unaware of the issues behind the protest, and that some had simply been lured into taking a "trip to Jakarta".
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Hundreds of senior high school students – many of whom were still in their school uniforms – take to the streets on Wednesday, Sept. 25, to join a protest near the Senayan legislative complex in Central Jakarta. (JP/Narabeto Korohama)
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everal parents arrived at the Jakarta Police headquarters on Thursday morning to collect their teenaged children, who had been detained the day before during the protests near the Senayan legislative complex in Jakarta, where the House of Representatives is located.
Dwi Harnani, 60, who lives in South Cipinang Besar village of Jatinegara, East Jakarta, came to the police headquarters to check on her son, 17-year-old Muhammad Rizki Agustia, who is an 11 grader at Dharma Surya vocational high school (SMK).
Dwi said that Rizki left for school at around 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday, when he was supposed to take a quiz in one of his classes.
“He went to school as usual. [But] It turned out that he had gone to a friend’s house instead,” Dwi told The Jakarta Post on Thursday. “He said that his friends persuaded him to come along with them [to the protest],” she added, explaining that her son was very social and, like other teenagers, was vulnerable to peer pressure.
Dwi discovered that Rizki had never made it to school when his teacher called her, telling her it was likely that he took a truck with his friends to the site of the protest.
At 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Rizki called one of his older brothers to tell him that he had been detained by the police for joining the protest.
“Because I was not unwell, perhaps he was scared to tell me directly,” said Dwi.
