Next stop is ‘re-education camp’
Anonymous/AP
Young men take forced group bath after being rounded up at punk concert in Indonesia.
Anonymous/AP
Indonesian cops lecture youths after they hauled them in from Aceh province punk rock concert and shaved off their Mohawks.
Indonesian authorities raided a punk rock concert and forcibly shaved off attendees’ Mohawks Tuesday, The Associated Press reported.
The concert-goers in the conservative Aceh province were forced to take a group bath for "spiritual cleansing" and brush their teeth on the spot.
One 20-year-old punk rocker was shocked by the police action.
"We didn't hurt anyone," he told the AP after his Mohawk haircut was shaved off. "This is how we've chosen to express ourselves. Why are they treating us like criminals?"
Sixty-four concert-goers were carted off to spend 10 days at a re-education camp focused on religion and mental and spiritual discipline.
After the raid, Illiza Sa'aduddin Djamal, the deputy mayor of Aceh's capital city, Banda Aceh, told the Jakarta Globe that the punk community is a "new social disease" that violates Islamic law. She said that if punks are allowed in the city, "the government has to spend more money to handle them."
In an interview with the BBC, Aceh police spokesman Gustav Leo said officers were responding to complaints from local residents and that the youths weren’t charged with any crime.
"They will undergo a re-education so their morals will match those of other Acehnese people," he said.
