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Court sentences underage 'anarcho-syndicalists' to four months in jail
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A man writes graffiti on the signpost of a police station next to the House of Representatives building in Senayan, Central Jakarta on Sept. 25, 2019. (JP/Dhoni Setiawan)
T
angerang District Court in Banten has sentenced two underage members of a so-called anarcho-syndicalist group to four months in prison despite attempts to get them noncustodial sentences.
“The underage offenders, identified as A and RH, have been sentenced [to four months in jail] after three failed attempts to enter them in the juvenile diversion program," Jakarta Metropolitan Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Yusri Yunus said on Friday, as quoted by kompas.com.
In the diversion program, an underage convict can avoid imprisonment and do social work instead. Low-risk youths such as first-time offenders are usually deemed eligible for the program.
Yusri added that the police had completed the case on another three suspects and submitted them to the district court in late April for trial.
Read also: Books seized, five arrested as police claim anarcho-syndicalists plan mass looting in Java
Police arrested five people suspected of being involved in the so-called anarcho-syndicalist group on April 10, after they allegedly painted graffiti inciting people to riot amid public anxiety over the COVID-19 outbreak.
Police claimed the suspects had spray-painted the walls of a shopping complex in Tangerang with messages saying "it's a crisis now; it's time to burn", "kill the rich" and "fight or die ridiculously".
They had been charged under articles 14 and 15 of the 1946 Misinformation Law and Article 160 of the Criminal Code on incitement, which carry sentences of up to 10 years' imprisonment.
Human rights activists warned the police following the arrest not to act arbitrarily and make arrests simply based on the ideology of certain people without sufficient evidence to prove their crimes. (vny)
