By Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Indonesia Correspondent

JAKARTA: Indonesian artists staged a protest in Surakarta, Central Java, after police, under pressure from Islamic hardliners, stopped production of a film depicting the massacre of communists in the mid-1960s.

Protest leaders rallying outside the police headquarters said they were upset that police had buckled instead of cracking down on Islamic militants who had on several occasions threatened the crew of the film Lastri in an attempt to abort its production.

'We have deep concerns that the police failed to stop the intimidation by militant groups,' protest coordinator Kelik Ismunandar was quoted by AFP as saying yesterday.

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