Chairman of HTI`s Surabaya chapter, Fikri A. Zudiar said that every Indonesian person should have ownership rights over oil, but it is violated by the government.
"The government should serve all Indonesian community`s business.
After all, the public had a right to natural resources, including petroleum," Fikri told the press at the demonstration scene.
According to him, ownership over oil equals to the people`s rights to have education and welfare.
Thus, HTI reminds the government not to violate the people`s rights.
"We conduct this demonstration to remind the government not to violate the people`s rights. We firmly reject and are opposed to the planned fuel oil price increase," Fikri said.
He also explained that in line with the 2010 national economic census, 65 percent of fuel oil users are the people of the lower to middle class or poor people, then 27 percent is the middle class people.
The remaining six percent are the middle to upper class and two percent are the upper class or rich people.
"We hope the government cancel the fuel price hike policy. If not, it is likely that people will be more miserable," Fikri said.
In the meantime, some 2,000 members of the HTI members demonstrated against the imminent fuel price hike at the Kujang Monument in Bogor city, West Java, on Sunday morning.
The demonstrators comprising mothers, fathers, youths and children crowed the Kujang Monument three-way intersection. The rally began at around 8.0 a.m.
"This is our second rally in a week to protest against a plan to raise fuel oil prices. We held a similar rally at eight different places last week. We are concentrating our rally today at the Kujang Monument," Dadang Darmadi, the coordinator of Hizbut Tahrir Indonesia`s Bogor chapter, said.
During the rally, the demonstrators distributed leaflets and unfurled banners to express HTI`s rejection of fuel price hike.
"We have distributed 7,500 leaflets to express our stand on the plan to raise fuel oil prices. The leaflets contain data on oil and gas production in Indonesia as well as the reasons behind our rejection of fuel price hike," he said.
He said HTI would continue to demonstrate against the plan to raise fuel prices before April.
Meanwhile, the government and the House failed to agree on the amount of fuel subsidy at their marathon meeting which ended at 4.0 a.m. on Sunday.
The government plans to raise the price of subsidized gasoline and diesel oil by respectively Rp1,500 to Rp6,000 a liter as of April 1, citing a surge in fuel subsidy as a result of spiraling global crude prices.
Global crude price is hovering above US$120 a barrel, well above the assumed oil price of US$90 a barrel in the 2012 state budget. (*)
Editor: Kunto Wibisono
Copyright © ANTARA 2012
