JAKARTA (Reuters) - About 500 Indonesian Muslims took to the streets of the capital to demand the government bring down food prices after media reports of cases of starvation.
The protesters, from the Muslim group Hizbut TahrirIndonesia, marched through Jakarta's main streets to thepresidential palace, chanting "Allahu Akbar" (God is Great).
The Surya newspaper said a schoolboy in East Java, wholived with his elderly grandmother in Magetan district, hangedhimself in February because he could not bear the pain ofstarvation. Neighbours said the family was very poor.
Detik.co, news Web site earlier this month reported that apregnant woman who lived in a rented room with her threechildren died because she had not eaten for three days.
"People have died of hunger, babies are suffering fromsevere malnutrition because they can't get proper treatment,"Hizbut Tahrir spokesman, Muhammad Ismail Yusanto, told ReutersTelevision.
"How is it possible that in an agricultural nation that hasbeen independent for more than 60 years, many people have diedof hunger?"
Soaring global prices of rice and other staples are hittingAsia's poorest citizens. (Reporting by Reuters Television;Writing by Ade Mardiyati; Editing by Ahmad Pathoni)
