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Two Indonesians confess to petrol bomb plot to ‘burn Chinese shops’ and incite looting spree
- Men give statements on camera saying they were paid to provoke raids on Chinese stores as Indonesia reels from its worst unrest since 1998
- Police fired tear gas near Jakarta’s parliament building on Monday to break up crowd throwing rocks and fireworks
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Why you can trust SCMP
Two Indonesian men have told police they were each paid 300,000 rupiah (US$21) to buy petrol for bombs that would “burn Chinese shops” in Jakarta and “provoke the masses” into a looting spree, as seen in 1998 when ethnic Chinese residents were attacked by mobs.
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Videos of the men – who were arrested on Saturday for storing, transporting and assembling explosives – were on Monday circulated on social media as pitched battles between thousands of students and police officers continued in the capital and several other cities.
Unrest has been rocking Indonesia for more than a week, sparked by proposed laws that critics say would weaken the country’s anti-corruption agency. The demonstrators are also against planned revisions to the criminal code that would compromise the rights of women and minorities and toughen the Muslim majority nation’s blasphemy law, among other changes.
Jakarta police on Tuesday said they had arrested more than 500 rioters from Monday’s clashes, where officers fired tear gas near the parliament building to break up a crowd of about 2,000. They said protesters had been throwing rocks, bottles, fireworks and petrol bombs, according to state news agency Antara. Some 26,000 police officers and soldiers have been mobilised in the capital.
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The videos of the two men, first published on the Twitter account of a police officer, were authentic, Jakarta police confirmed.
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