The walls of Malang, Indonesia, constantly remind us: justice must be done. A year after the tragedy at Kanjuruhan Stadium, where 135 people died during a crowd movement, the atmosphere in the Javanese city is stifling. Banners glorifying Arema FC – the local football club – have given way to stubborn slogans. In front of the station, a banner urges: “Usut Tuntas!” » (“investigate thoroughly!” »). “We need justice”we can read on a bridge. “Malang, the land that kills”also proclaims this immense mural.
To understand this feeling of revolt, we must return to 1er October 2022, when Arema FC hosts Persebaya, the Surabaya club, in the East Java derby, one of the strongest rivalries in the archipelago. Although renovated in 2010, the Kanjuruhan stadium, which hosts the meeting, has aged poorly. The enclosure with three stands had been limited to a capacity of 38,000 people, according to the minister responsible for coordinating security issues, Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin. However, more than 42,000 tickets were put on sale for the match – none for supporters of the visiting team, who were banned from traveling.
That evening, Surabaya won for the first time in more than twenty years on the lawn of its rival (2-3). The final whistle has barely blown when the winners rush into the locker room. The Arema players remain helpless on the pitch. That’s when two fans enter the field; soon imitated by several hundred others. The special police unit responsible for risky encounters, Brimod, takes position. An altercation breaks out and security forces begin firing tear gas canisters towards the stands – an investigation by the national commission on human rights will estimate, in a report in November, that at least 45 projectiles were used .
“It was a massacre, not a riot”
Despite directives from the International Football Federation which stipulate that stewards and police officers deployed “around the perimeter of the playing field (…) must not carry or use any firearm or “crowd control gas”, the members of Brimod practice tense shots, towards the crowd, in the South turn and the East stand. The stands are overwhelmed by gas fumes. Met this summer, Dlion still remembers the “ferocity” police officers.
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