Student-army clash
YOGYAKARTA — Students on campus of the Sunan Kalijaga State Institute for Islamic Studies demonstrated on June 14 to demand academic freedom, campus autonomy and the withdrawal of a ban on the student newspaper Arena.
Starting at 6.00 a.m., members of the Indonesian Students Society held an open forum and began a boycott of semester exams as a part of actions started two days earlier.
Students had also occupied the rector's (vice-chancellor's) office. Fifty were still occupying the rectorate.
By 7.00 a.m. the crowd grew to about 2000. Police and military began to arrive, and some entered one of the faculties and began to smash down the doors of lecture theatres.
When students refused to leave the rector's office, university officials promised to try to arrange a meeting with the rector. While the students were waiting for news on this, a police contingent arrived as well as a group of armed soldiers.
The police commander ordered his troops to load any resisting students onto a truck and to force open the rectorate. The students who resisted were attacked, beaten, kicked and dragged off. Fifteen students were forcibly taken aboard the truck. As of June 14, there was no news of their whereabouts.
Several students were also trapped inside the rectorate and beaten.
Aksi (Indonesian Solidarity Action) has called on all supporters of human rights to send protest letters demanding an end to harassment and intimidation of student activists to: H.E. Sabam Siagian, Indonesian Embassy, Darwin Circuit, Yarralumla ACT 2600, telephone (06) 273 3222, fax (06) 250 8666.