meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
PBS News Hour - Segments

Violence sweeps across Indonesia amid protests over worsening economy

PBS News Hour - Segments

PBS NewsHour

News, Daily News

4.11K Ratings

🗓️ 7 September 2025

⏱️ 7 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In recent weeks, Indonesia has been rocked by massive anti-government demonstrations. The protests are led by students, workers and women’s rights groups angered by the yawning gap between Indonesia’s elites and shrinking middle class, and turned violent after a delivery driver was killed amid a police crackdown. John Yang speaks with The Economist’s Aaron Connelly about the ongoing situation. PBS News is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

In recent weeks, Indonesia has been rocked by massive anti-government protests that have spread across the nation.

0:07.4

Demonstrators, torched vehicles, and government buildings.

0:10.6

The protests are led by students, workers, and women's rights groups, angry over the yawning

0:15.8

gap between Indonesia's elites and the shrinking middle class.

0:19.6

Things turned violent after a delivery driver was killed amid a police crackdown.

0:23.6

In all, at least 10 people have died.

0:26.6

Earlier I spoke with Aaron Connolly, Asia Diplomatic Editor at The Economist.

0:30.6

I asked him about the current situation.

0:32.6

It remains to be seen what will happen this week.

0:35.6

The protesters set a deadline of Friday for some of their demands to be met, the first

0:41.7

17 of the 25 demands.

0:44.3

Most of those demands were not met.

0:46.0

And I think the president is hoping that everything will just calm down, that it takes a lot

0:50.3

of the wind out of the sales of the protesters to promise that there would be an investigation

0:55.0

of the motorbike delivery rider's death and that the allowances would be withdrawn

1:00.0

and that they don't go back down onto the streets or at least not in the same numbers.

1:04.0

We have a little bit of sound from a protester talking about some of their demands.

1:09.0

We want concrete steps that they continue to take for all the people of Indonesia.

1:15.6

We still feel unsatisfied. We still feel that there are still many changes that must be made.

1:20.6

Because we believe that when our voices have not been heard, then we must continue to move.

1:25.6

Then we must continue to speak out to convey our aspirations.

1:29.0

What else are they looking for? What else do they want?

...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from PBS NewsHour, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of PBS NewsHour and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.