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Witness History

Jakarta’s ban on dancing monkeys

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.51.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 August 2025

⏱️ 11 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2013, Jakarta's governor moved to outlaw the use of dancing monkeys on the city’s streets.

The Indonesian tradition saw macaques made to perform for passers-by - often restrained by chains and dressed in plastic masks. Campaigners said the animals were frequently subjected to harsh treatment and poor living conditions.

Animal rights activist Femke den Haas played a key role in securing the ban.

She tells Vicky Farncombe that it was the suffering of one particular monkey, Johnny, that spurred her to take action.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there. For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more. Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue. We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher. You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

(Photo: A dancing monkey in Jakarta. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hi, this is Witness History from the BBC World Service with me, Vicky Farncom.

0:09.9

We're the podcast that takes you back to a significant moment in history,

0:14.4

and we bring it all to live through Incredible Archive and the amazing memories of One Key Witness.

0:19.5

Episodes are nine minutes long and come out every weekday.

0:23.1

If that sounds like your thing, please subscribe wherever you get your BBC podcasts

0:27.0

and turn your push notifications on so you'll never miss a show.

0:31.0

Today, we're going back more than 10 years

0:33.3

to when Jakarta became the first city in Indonesia to ban dancing monkeys.

0:40.8

It's late 2013.

0:44.4

And we're in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia.

0:48.3

Early in the morning, at the gate of a government building, a strange site.

0:53.7

Hues of people handing over macaque monkeys.

0:58.0

Monkeys on the motor rides, with monkeys in bags, with monkeys in boxes.

1:04.4

Dutch activist Femke Den Haas is part of the team accepting these unusual offerings.

1:11.5

But her eyes are on the lookout for one particular monkey.

1:15.4

I knew precisely what he looked like.

1:17.2

I knew the scars on his face, you know, the pigment he had under his eye, like he had a

1:23.0

white spot.

1:24.1

And I knew him, I could identify him.

1:27.0

The animal's name is Johnny,

1:29.1

and Femke first saw him at busy traffic lights in the city centre, five years previously.

1:35.8

It's an image she'll never forget.

...

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