Hundreds of people armed with machetes clashed with security forces using water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets in Jakarta today over a plan to renovate an area containing an Islamic scholar's tomb.
The local hospital in Koja, north Jakarta, said it was treating 54 people following the fighting between about 2,000 public order officers and residents, the worst civil disturbances in several years in the Indonesian capital.
Several vehicles, including buses and trucks, were set on fire and destroyed during the day-long clash that disrupted work in Indonesia's biggest port.
A Reuters photographer saw the security forces use water cannon, tear gas and rubber bullets. Local television footage showed protesters being beaten by public order officers.
Some of the protesters were supporters of the Islamic Defenders Front, a hardline Muslim group known for attacking bars and nightclubs. Several appeared to be teenagers.
Metro TV said two people died in the unrest but did not cite a source.
The protesters thought the city government was trying to remove the tomb of Habib Hasan, an Islamic scholar who died in the mid-1700s, on land owned by state-owned port company Pelindo II. The Jakarta local government denied it had plans to dismantle the tomb, saying it wanted to renovate it.
Tanjung Priok is famous in modern Indonesian history for the riots that took place in the area in 1984 when former President Suharto's security forces fired on Muslims, killing dozens of people
Following the incident, Mr Suharto launched a crackdown on militant Islam in the world's most populous Muslim country.