Tanjung Priok massacre

The Tanjung Priok massacre was an incident that occurred in the port area of Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, Indonesia in 1984. Government reports give a total of 24 killed and 54 injured, while survivors report over a hundred killed.

On 10 September 1984, Sergeant Hermanu, a member of the Community Advisory Non-Commissioned Officer (Bintara Pembina Desa) arrived at As Saadah Mosque in Tanjung Priok, North Jakarta, and told the caretaker, Amir Biki, to remove brochures and banners critical of the government. Biki refused this demand, upon which point Hermanu removed them himself; to do so, he reportedly entered the prayer area of the mosque without removing his shoes (a serious violation of mosque etiquette). In response, local residents, led by mosque caretakers Syarifuddin Rambe and Sofwan Sulaeman, burned his motorcycle and attacked Hermanu while he was talking with another officer. The two then arrested Rambe and Sulaeman, as well as another caretaker, Achmad Sahi, and an unemployed man named Muhamad Noor.

Two days after the arrest, Islamic cleric Abdul Qodir Jaelani gave a sermon against Pancasila at As Saadah mosque. Afterwards, Biki led a protest to the District Military Command office for North Jakarta, where the four prisoners were being held. Along the way, the group's numbers swelled, with estimates ranging between 1,500 and several thousand. Also during the trip, nine members of a Muslim Chinese Indonesian family headed by Tan Kioe Liem were killed by the protestors. The family's store, a pharmacy, was burned to the ground.

Once at the military command, the group unsuccessfully demanded the release of the prisoners. At roughly 11 p.m. local time (UTC+7), the protestors surrounded the military command. Military personnel from the 6th Air Defence Artillery Battalion opened fire on the protestors. Around midnight, eyewitnesses saw military commander of Jakarta Try Sutrisno and Chief of the Armed Forces Leonardus Benjamin Moerdani supervising the removal of the victims; the corpses were loaded into military trucks and buried in unmarked graves, while the wounded were sent to Gatot Soebroto Military Hospital.

After the riots, the military reported that they had been triggered by a man in a fake military uniform who distributed anti-government pamphlets along with 12 other accomplices; it reported having the man in custody. General Hartono Rekso Dharsono was arrested for allegedly inciting the riots. After a four-month trial, he was convicted; he was eventually released in September 1990, after serving five-years jail time.