An Indonesian kindergarten has been criticised for dressing children as jihadists for a parade.
Staff dressed a group of young girls in head to toe in black niqab veils and armed them with cardboard cutouts of rifles for an Independence Day parade in East Java.
They marched down the street carrying the fake guns, with two girls at the front riding fake white horses - and footage of the parade has since gone viral on social media.
Responding to the outrage, the head of TK Kartika kindergarten in Probolinggo said the costumes were never meant to "instil violence" and she was "deeply sorry".
Head teacher Hartartik said the staff had chosen made costumes from the limited resources they had and "never thought about the impact".
"The important thing is to take part in the parade, that the children were happy, using the existing property."
She said the costumes weren't intended to symbolise radicalism but rather "the struggle of the Prophet to increase faith and devotion to Allah".
The parade has been condemned by the Indonesian Parliament, BBC reports, with House speaker Bambang Soesatyo calling it an "inappropriate spectacle".
"Ordering children to wear black veiled costumes and carry replica weapons gives a poor perception," he said.
"Treatment like that could damage children's ideas."
Newshub.
