Thousands rally across Indonesia in fresh legal reform protests

JAKARTA AFP SEPT30, 2019 - Thousands rallied across Indonesia Monday in fresh demonstrations sparked by a raft of divisive legal reforms, including banning pre-marital sex and weakening the anti-graft agency.

At least two students have died and hundreds more were injured as unrest swept across the Southeast Asian archipelago, just weeks before President Joko Widodo kicks off a second term as head of the world’s third-biggest democracy.

In the capital Jakarta, some 26,000 police and soldiers were deployed while large crowds -including placard-carrying students and factory workers -- chanted for change near parliament, which was barricaded with barbed wire.

The protests are among the biggest student rallies since mass street demonstrations in 1998 toppled the Suharto dictatorship.

Passage of the reforms has now been delayed, while Widodo has said he would consider revising a separate bill that critics fear would dilute the powers of Indonesia’s corruption-fighting agency, known as the KPK.