{"id":403250,"date":"2021-11-24T10:42:38","date_gmt":"2021-11-24T10:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/?p=66720"},"modified":"2021-11-24T10:42:38","modified_gmt":"2021-11-24T10:42:38","slug":"buildings-burned-in-looting-after-solomon-islands-protest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/24\/buildings-burned-in-looting-after-solomon-islands-protest\/","title":{"rendered":"Buildings burned in looting after Solomon Islands protest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/\"><em>RNZ Pacific<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A police station and several shops were set on fire by looters in Solomon Islands today after <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/456444\/protesters-take-to-the-streets-in-solomon-islands\">what started in the morning as a peaceful protest<\/a> turned ugly around mid-afternoon.<\/p>\n<p>Videos on social media show police firing tear gas to disperse looters, and buildings on fire.<\/p>\n<p>RNZ Pacific&#8217;s correspondent in the capital Honiara, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ginakekea\">Georgina Kekea<\/a>, was in the Kukum area where the police station and shops were set alight, and said at least one building had been burned down.<\/p>\n<p>Police she spoke to said the large crowds had been at the other end of town, and officers had not expected the crowd to attack their police station.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;So when they came out and they just saw all the protestors there and they had to run into a room and hide. There were about 10 of them,&#8221; she said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;They were in the rooms when they started breathing in smoke and they realised that the building was being burnt, so they came out and the building has [now] burnt down.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Earlier in the day a plume of black smoke was seen rising from Parliament&#8217;s grounds, where Kekea said a leaf hut used for coffee breaks was on fire, before firefighters from the fire station next to Parliament put the blaze out.<\/p>\n<p>Kekea said local police were calling for calm as they tried to restore order.<\/p>\n<p>They said much of the looting was being carried out by criminal opportunists, most of them young men.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\">\n<p dir=\"ltr\" lang=\"en\">Police station in Honiara burnt down by the protestors. Kukum traffic police station. Police continue to call on people to refrain from illegal activities &amp; call on leaders to come down &amp; assist in calming the situation down. <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/eqk88NvCdF\">pic.twitter.com\/eqk88NvCdF<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Georgina Kekea (@ginakekea) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ginakekea\/status\/1463404276307296261?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">November 24, 2021<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>The original protest at Parliament was led by citizens from Malaita province, who were voicing their <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rnz.co.nz\/international\/pacific-news\/456444\/protesters-take-to-the-streets-in-solomon-islands\">frustrations with the national government<\/a> and calling for Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare to step down.<\/p>\n<p><em>This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.<\/em><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_66729\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-66729\" style=\"width: 680px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-image-66729 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Rioting-in-Honiara-T-680tall.png\" alt=\"The rioting in Honiara today.\" width=\"680\" height=\"555\" srcset=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Rioting-in-Honiara-T-680tall.png 680w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Rioting-in-Honiara-T-680tall-300x245.png 300w, https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Rioting-in-Honiara-T-680tall-515x420.png 515w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 680px) 100vw, 680px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-66729\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The rioting in Honiara today. Image: The Pacific Newsroom<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/asiapacificreport.nz\/2021\/11\/24\/buildings-burned-in-looting-after-solomon-islands-protest\/\">Asia Pacific Report<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>RNZ Pacific A police station and several shops were set on fire by looters in Solomon Islands today after what started in the morning as a peaceful protest turned ugly around mid-afternoon. Videos on social media show police firing tear gas to disperse looters, and buildings on fire. RNZ Pacific\u2019s correspondent in the capital Honiara,<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":400,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[362,5,38892,4034,12,1834,13,14,35,2573,368,887],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403250"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/400"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=403250"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":403827,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/403250\/revisions\/403827"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=403250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=403250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=403250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}