Looting and unrest in Indonesia
Newshour
BBC
4.2 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 31 August 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Indonesia's president has warned that the police and army will take the "strongest possible action" to tackle a wave of violent anti-government unrest. President Prabowo Subianto said some of the protests - including the homes of politicians being looted - amounted to what he called treason and terrorism. We speak to a student leader.
Also in the programme: In France, plans to lend the Bayeux Tapestry to the UK have led to concern from thousands; and China-India relations are warming up as the leaders meet amidst the backdrop of Trump's trade tariffs.
(Photo: Protesters clash with police outside the parliament building in Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia, 30 August 2025. Credit: Made Nagi /EPA/Shutterstock)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to you live from London. I'm Krupa Bari and it's very good to have you with us. It's been another tense day of violent anti-government protests across Indonesia. Today, we saw the homes of lawmakers and local |
| 0:23.1 | council buildings ransacked and looted as anger mounts against a wide-ranging set of economic issues. |
| 0:29.6 | One of the core complaints being a new monthly allowance for lawmakers. |
| 0:34.3 | Police have been firing tear gas at protesters who have been throwing fireworks. |
| 0:45.2 | Well, President Pravavo Subiato said some of the behavior amounted to what he called treason and terrorism. |
| 0:53.3 | But in a concession to those who have taken to the streets, |
| 0:56.4 | he also announced that he'd cut some perks and extra pay for MPs. The situation has been further |
| 1:02.2 | fuelled after footage spread of 21-year-old motorcycle taxi driver Afan Kurniawan being fatally run over |
| 1:09.3 | by a police vehicle at the site of the protests. |
| 1:12.2 | The BBC's Astodestra Agingrasty is in Jakarta and she told me more. |
| 1:17.1 | So the protest has built up from about a month or so |
| 1:21.4 | when the Indonesian people realise that the parliament get a hike for their allowance, which includes |
| 1:32.4 | the housing allowance, as much as $3,000, US dollar, or about 50 million rupees in Indonesia. |
| 1:40.5 | And that makes the total of the take-home pay that they get is exceeding the number of $6,000, |
| 1:48.0 | and that is about the 30 times the average worker works in Indonesia. |
| 1:55.0 | So that sparked anger, and so protests started happening after people learned that fact. |
| 2:01.2 | On Monday, the huge protest erupted, and 300 people were detained after the protest ended. |
| 2:09.4 | And then on Wednesday, another protest happened, but this time it's slightly different because it got very chaotic. |
| 2:17.2 | And the police forces forces they run a taxi |
| 2:22.0 | driver a motorcycle taxi driver they hit and run over him with a tactical vehicle and this person |
| 2:32.7 | end up dead so that's part another chain of protest, which is now |
| 2:39.1 | happening until today. It has been going on for several days. So the death of that driver |
... |
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