THE death of Albar Mahdi, a student at the Pondok Modern Darussalam Gontor, an Islamic boarding school in Ponorogo, East Java, adds to the long list of victims of violent mistreatment in Islamic boarding schools, known in Indonesia as pesantren. The violence usually perpetrated by seniors has continued for a long time. Besides Albar, four other students have died because of violent abuse by their seniors in 2022. The religious affa