Adji G Rinepta, Jogja – Hundreds of students from the Yogyakarta Muhammadiyah University Alliance (UMY) held a protest action at the Zero Kilometre Point in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta this afternoon.
The majority of them wore red jackets and crowded into the Zero Kilometre intersection until road access was closed off by police.
According to Detik Jogja monitoring, the protesters began to crowd into the Zero Kilometre area starting at 2.30 pm. They brought placards and banners containing criticism and demands. The banners were then unfurled on the road.
A pickup truck was parked in the middle of the crowd and used as a free speech stage. Flags were installed on pickup trucks while others were flown alongside the boisterous voices of speakers.
"There are eight points in the demands, which are based on reading the situation from comrades of the UMY Movement alliance and various elements of the student movement that are members of it", explained the general coordinator of the UMY Movement (UMY Bergerak) alliance, Arif, on the sidelines of the action on Wednesday June 17.
"Today's [government] policies cannot be separated from the interests of United States imperialism towards Indonesia. Imperialist domination of Indonesia is still very, very thick and still very, very dependent, so that the basic needs of the people, the weakening of the rupiah, cannot be separated from geopolitical interests", he explained.
Apart from the UMY Movement alliance, protesters from other groups also took part in the action. One of them was from the Nusantara Student Executive Council (BEM). The Yogyakarta provincial (DIY) coordinator of BEM Nusantara, Miftahun Niam, said that they are not just taking up demands on national issues.
"We are also taking up regional issues such as charging the DIY Regional Police which as of today have not been able to eradicate the root of the problem of klitih [teenage street gang violence], and DIY's problems such as the DIY rubbish emergency", explained Niam.
"We also want drainage and absorption wells on the DIY Ring Road which if it rains heavily will flood. Also, there is not enough lighting on the Ring Road, which results in lots of accidents at night", he continued. (apu/afn)
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Mahasiswa Gelar Aksi Merahkan Titik Nol Km Jogja Sore Ini".]
