A court in East Java handed down the sentence Tuesday after finding Heri Budiawan, 38, guilty of spreading communism during a demonstration last year against the opening of a local gold mine. Some protesters were seen carrying banners with an image of a hammer and sickle — a widely-recognised symbol of communism — during the protest and Budiawan was fingered as the rally organiser. A change to the criminal code in the late 1990s made it illegal to spread communism or other leftist ideologies, with possible sentences of up to 12 years in jail. During his 32-year rule, the government’s official narrative was that the killings had been necessary to rid Indonesia of communism. Also in 2017, three university students were suspended from school for selling books about communism, Marxism and Leninism.

Source: The Express Tribune January 24, 2018 07:18 UTC