Officers Intimidate Artists Protesting against Yogya Mayor
10 October 2013 18:30 WIB
TEMPO.CO, Yogyakarta - Initiators of the ‘Art Festival in Search of Haryadi’ have begun to be intimidated by the Yogyakarta City administration. One of the ways they were intimated was through the arrest of street artist Muhammad Arif Buwono while he was making a mural on the wall of an empty home last Tuesday.
"He (Arif) admitted he was scared because he was threatened with a gun aimed at him by an officer wearing clothing like a thug, accompanied by an officer from the Public Order Agency (Satpol PP)," said Agung Kurniawan, one of the initiators of the festival.
During the incident, Arif was in the middle of perfecting a mural created by his friend with the writing ‘Jogja Ora Didol’ (Yogya is not for sale). The mural was a part of the ‘Art Festival in Search of Haryadi’ scheduled to be held from October 6 this year to March 6, 2014. This festival is held to criticize the poor performance of Yogyakarta’s current mayor, Haryadi Suyuti, for the past two years since he took over the reins as the city’s leader.
A number of Yogyakarta Public Order Agency officers approached Arif and forced him to come down from the house’s ceiling.
"Arif finally came down because he was scared," said another artist by the name of Yoan Fallon.
Arif yesterday was tried for a petty crime at the Yogyakarta Court.
The mural on the building has been erased several times, purportedly by Public Order Agency officers. Head of the Order Department at the Yogyakarta Public Order Agency, Sukamto, admitted his men had approached Arif. However, he denied that a member of his force aimed a gun at Arif. Arif was arrested for violating bylaw No. 18/2002 on the city’s cleanliness.
PRIBADI WICAKSONO
