AFP. 31 December 2001. Suspected communist students in Indonesia reported to police.
JAKARTA -- A state-run Indonesian university has given police a list of 24 of its students who are suspected of adhering to communistm, which was banned here 35 years ago, a report said Monday. The students, from Mulawarman University on the Indonesian island of Kalimantan, were reported to local police by the education institution's chancellor, Rachmat Hernadi, the Suara Pembaruan evening daily said. Hernadi told the paper that nine of the 24 students on the list had already been forbidden from attending classes for six months starting with the new study season in February. He did not give details on the offences that prompted the sanctions or on how the students came to be suspected of communism. But Hernardi said that the list was given to the police because the university had no authority to try the students for "spreading communism in the campus." The names of the 24 students were not made public. Hernardi could not be reached at his office or home and a policeman on duty at the Samarinda city police station said he had no information yet on the handing over of the list. Indonesia banned the then-powerful Indonesian Communist Party and the spreading of its teachings in 1966, a few months after a failed coup attempt in October 1, 1965, that has been blamed on the party. Although police could not comment on the students' plight, previous cases linked to communism have been dealth with under subversion laws, which can penalise the spreading of communism with the death penalty. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews
