EKO, Rizki, and Ikhsan were chatting on the terrace of the party’s office when suddenly some two dozen unin­vited guests started pummelling them, ganging up on the young acti­vists that Sunday evening a fortnight ago. After taking Ikhsan hostage for an hour and dumping him 50 meters from the site of the attack, the assailants got away.

Police came and took the badly bruised Eko and friends to the Palu Police Station, Central Sulawesi, where