Thousands rally across Indonesia in fresh legal-reform protests

Thousands rallied across Indonesia Monday in fresh demonstrations sparked by a raft of divisive legal reforms, including banning pre-marital sex and weakening the anti-graft agency.

At least two students have died and hundreds more were injured as unrest swept across the Southeast Asian archipelago, just weeks before President Joko Widodo kicks off a second term as head of the world's third-biggest democracy.

In the capital Jakarta, some 26,000 police and soldiers were deployed while large crowds -- including placard-carrying students and factory workers -- chanted for change near parliament, which was barricaded with barbed wire.

The demonstrations have been fuelled by a proposed bill that includes dozens of legal changes -- from criminalising pre-marital sex and restricting contraceptive sales, to making it illegal to insult the president and toughening the Muslim-majority country's blasphemy law.

The protests are among the biggest student rallies since mass street demonstrations in 1998 toppled the Suharto dictatorship.

Passage of the reforms has now been delayed, while Widodo has said he would consider revising a separate bill that critics fear would dilute the powers of Indonesia's corruption-fighting agency, known as the KPK.

"Why is this law being revised?" said Lukmanul Hakim Ahbr, a 24-year-old Indonesian who said he returned from his studies in neighbouring Malaysia to join the protests.

"We students... reject any revision that will weaken the KPK," he added.

Some held banners that read: "Cancel regulations that threaten people's rights and the environment."