Former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, who is serving time in prison for blasphemy, is one of the 9,333 convicts that have been granted Christmas remission, according to his lawyer Teguh Samudra.
“Pak Ahok has been granted 15 days of remission,” Teguh told local media.
According to the Law and Human Rights Ministry, while the Christmas remission is predominantly targeted for convicts of Christian faiths, not all Christian convicts have been granted remission.
The ministry’s acting director general for correctional facilities, Makmun, said that out of the total of 227,446 prisoners in the country, as many as 15,748 of them are Christians. However, of that amount, only 9,333 received remission.
The Christian convicts who received special remission, Makmun said, were selected based on their criminal acts. If they were corruption convicts, they were required to be justice collaborators to receive remission.
I Wayan Sudirta, another of Ahok’s lawyer, had expected his client to receive Christmas remission, which varies from 15 days to two months at most because he had been imprisoned for more than six months and is considered well-behaved.