A STATEMENT by a third-year student at a public junior high school in Cirebon, West Java, asserted: “Free my friends. Let them choose their own uniforms.”

Delivered last August 14—three days before the Indonesian Independence Day—the appeal spread in the form of texts on many WhatsApp group chats.

A simple demand, nothing extreme. Re, her name was, only asked for female Muslim students to have the choice to wear the