The slim, long-haired man with a backpack appeared at the office of Women's Solidarity in East Jakarta on August 6, 1996. Some members of the women's advocacy group panicked at seeing him in person.

The man, Wiji Thukul, was in the news, his picture shown in newspapers and on television as a pro-democracy activist most-wanted by police following the July 27 riots that year. "We then had a meeting and decided to take him into hiding in my house," Ver