Indonesia News

  Protest movement against Macron's statements On October 21, Macron assured that France would not ban cartoons. Words that sparked anger across the Muslim world, which called for boycott campaigns against French products and tourism. Massive demonstrations have been staged in the streets of the capital Jakarta to protest against the remarks deemed insulting. Demonstrators held up placards with caricatures of the French president depicted in devilish features with a red face and pointed ears as well as banners that read: “The real terrorist is Macron”, “Boycott the products of terrorist and racist France '', “France ... State of terror”. Saturday, in an interview, Emmanuel Macron expressed his “understanding” of the feelings of Muslims about offensive cartoons, without denouncing the attack on the Muslim religion and the Prophet. Following boycott campaigns and demonstrations, the Basmala Shop store chain withdrew French products from the shelves of its 180 stores located i...

Over the past few days and despite the ban on rallies, a lot of Indonesians have protested against a law they say could harm workers and the environment. Many arrests have taken place in Jakarta and all over the country.  Protesters think that the law is favors companies but the government thinks that this has to be enforced because of the Covid-19 crisis that has hit hard the economy like in the rest of the world. President Joko Widodo wants the law to remove administrative barriers to make Indonesia more attractive to foreign trade. This “omnibus law” is supposed to create almost 3 million jobs for young people and those who lost their jobs during the pandemic. Indonesians are protesting because they are afraid for their jobs and do not agree with the government that just want to apply the law quickly. Last Thursday, the police intervened to disperse protesters with tear gas and water cannons. Workers went on a national strike, took to the street and rode in motorbikes parades wh...

The Ministry of Health has announced that the number of COVID-19 cases continues to increase. In a single day 3,992 more cases were reported with 96 deaths. In return, 3,401 people were able to leave hospitals. This increases the number of cases to 303,498, the number of deaths to 11,151 and the number of people cured to 228,453. The Indonesian Physicians Association adds that 3 Indonesian doctors are among the 96 deaths for a total of 130 doctors who have died since the start of the pandemic, including 67 general practitioners, 61 specialist doctors and 2 doctors in residence. The Indonesian National Nurses Association reports the death of 92 nurses. “The loss of health workers is a great loss for a nation”, said Ari Kusuma, vice president of the association's mitigation team. Regarding the different provinces of Indonesia, Jakarta has discovered 1,398 new cases in the last 24 hours, 314 in Central Java, 255 in West Sumatra, 249 in East Java and 248 in West Java. COVID-19 : le b...

 Indonesia affected by coronavirus Indonesia ended up being affected by coronavirus and announced 38 new cases this Tuesday, bringing the total number of cases recorded to 172. “As many as 14 cases have been identified in Jakarta, while West Java, Banten and Central Java reported one case each,” Achmad Yurianto, the government spokesman for the coronavirus related matters, said at a news conference in the capital Jakarta. The government will coordinate with the Jakarta administration and Police to conduct further contact tracing and finding other people who have been exposed to the disease. Moreover, President Joko Widodo said on Sunday he would get tested for coronavirus, while some of his ministers had also undergone precautionary tests after the Southeast Asian country's transport minister tested positive for the disease. Widodo also suggested people work from home and avoid mass gatherings, as he sought to calm rising concern...

The “Niqab Squad” seeks to bring Muslim women closer to Paradise Four years ago, clothes designer Indadari Mindrayanti created the « Niqab Squad » movement to promote veil wearing. There are now about six thousand members across Indonesia, Malaysia and Taiwan. The movement was born in Temboro, an Indonesian city east of Jakarta. This movement is regrouping women like Idhanur, a teacher in her thirties, who claimed doing sport like archery and horse riding while wearing Niqab brings her closer to paradise and argued like some other members of the movement that Niqab is protecting her from prying eyes and sexual harassment. However, in Indonesia, wearing the Niqab is often associated with terrorism, because of attacks like that of the Surabaya church in 2018, in which the terrorists wore Niqab. That caused the 2018 ban of Niqab in a Java university for a week. Moreover, the Indonesian minister of religious affairs Fachrul Razi, is advocating a Niqab ban in government buildings. T...

Ban lifted on coral export  During his whole life, Agus Joko Supriyatno farmed corals on Nusa Lembongan coast, a small island next to Bali and made a living out of it. But in 2018, Indonesia government banned the export of corals and the decision was terrible for his production and that of other farms.  Then, the former Minister of Maritime Affairs, Susi Pudjiastuti, had considered it necessary to protect the flora in Indonesian waters from poaching of wild corals. This is why she passed a law which overnight stopped exports of all kinds of coral.  This new law threw M. Supriyatno, like many other farmers, into a very precarious situation. Indeed, based on an estimate, 12,000 citizens lost their jobs.  Before this ban, it was totally legal to export farmed corals and Indonesia was even the biggest supplier in the world. This represented 70% of the coral sold on the world market for marine aquariums.  Edhy Prabowo, Indonesia’s new former...