JAKARTA — Education officials in Indonesia have dismissed a kindergarten principal after a video of veiled children carrying replica weapons in a street parade sparked an outcry in the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation.
The images of children dressed head-to-toe in black carrying wooden guns in the East Java city of Probolinggo last Friday caused a sensation. Indonesia in May suffered one of its worst attacks in years when militants used their children as suicide bombers in Surabaya.
The head of Probolinggo’s Education, Youth and Sports office, Muhammad Maskur, said Thursday that the principal organized the Independence Day parade without coordinating with his office or the district military command where the kindergarten was located.
He said the principal was dismissed and is now an ordinary staff member in the education office.
