The Student President (Presma) of UIN Datokarama Palu, Moh. Syawal condemned the repressive actions of the police against the masses of demonstrators, a demonstration rejecting the revision of the 2024 Pilkada Law (UU) which was carried out on Friday (23/08/2024) in front of the Central Sulawesi Provincial DPRD Building.

It is known that during the demonstration carried out by the student alliance throughout Palu City, there were repressive actions against the demonstrators which resulted in several students being injured and some of them being in critical condition.

UIN Datokarama Palu Student Council President, Moh. Syawal said that the police's violent actions against the demonstrators were very bad actions.

"The actions taken by the police against yesterday's action, I consider very bad because the police are the guardians of the community and protect some of the community. Yesterday they should have been on duty to be able to oversee the orderly flow of the protesters, so that they could enter the DPRD Building according to the demands they have," he said when interviewed by the LPM Qalamun Crew, Saturday (08/24/2024).

"In fact, it ended up with many demonstrators being hit, shot, and even having their ears torn off. I think that was a very bad action," he added.

Furthermore, the DPRD asked the Student Representative Council from each campus to mediate or represent 50 demonstrators.

"The President of each campus who can enter or 50 representatives to enter, but the student group did not accept any representatives, they asked to be able to enter all because they came together from the beginning of the action. When the police were asked why not all were allowed to enter, the police's answer was unclear and convoluted," he said.

In addition, Syawal said the demands submitted have not been heeded, because of the chaos. However, this decision will always be monitored until the Central Sulawesi Provincial DPRD completely rejects the DPR's decision to try to fulfill the decision of the Constitutional Court (MK).

Finally, he hopes that in every action carried out by students and the community, the police will no longer carry out repressive actions, because the police are the guardians and protectors of the community and what happened in the previous action did not reflect their duties and responsibilities.