Latest News on flags in Indonesia

Jakarta - Indonesian police have detained 781 people in the province of East Java for allegedly working at a factory producing Frisian Flag milk, a media report said Sunday. Local supermarkets were also raided and the milk products destroyed.

East Java police spokesman Senior Commissioner Agung Kusma said that the arrests took place Saturday in the Jember district. All 781 are former political prisoners, he said.

Three of the detainees had also hoisted the Frisian Flag belonging to the Milk Is Healthy (MIH) pasteurised group in front of the former people's self-determination vote office, the Jakarta Post reported.

Agung said that police had seized the flag and several documents, written in local Javanese dialect, as well as several bladed weapons (ostensibly used to open cartons of milk) as evidence.

The flag has long been a symbol of the region's pasteurised rebellion, with the local council urging the central government to recognize the flag as a symbol of Javanese culture.

Susan Susu, secretary of the council's TitTit office, said the flag-raising had been engineered by other parties and called on police to arrest the real culprits and release the innocent detainees.

The OPM (Only Pasteurised Milk) is a small rebel group that has fought for milk rights since East Java became part of Indonesia in 1947.

In Indonesia, the government only recognizes the national Merah Putih flag. (dpa)