You may recall last month an Indonesian court convicted and sentenced seven West Papuans on treason charges for their role in anti-racism protests last year.
The seven were handed sentences of between 10 and 11 months in prison by a panel of judges in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan.
The trial of the so-called Balikpapan Seven gained significant international attention, not least because prosecutors were pushing for prison terms of up to seventeen years for some of them.
Now, the first of them has been released, having served most of his sentence before the trial concluded.
Alexander Gobai was a student Jayapura University of Science and Technology before he was sentenced.
Fresh out of jail, he shares his thoughts on the conviction and prison. His comments are translated.
Indonesian police vehicles attend to mass mobilisations in Jayapura, Papua province, August 2019 Photo: Whens Tebay
