A Christian politician whose campaign comments ignited protests that were the largest in Muslim-majority Indonesia in years has been released from prison after a controversial two-year sentence for blasphemy.
A spokesman for Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, the former governor of Jakarta, said he left a paramilitary police prison outside the capital early Thursday.
In 2016, Purnama made campaign-trail comments that hardliners seized on as blasphemy, triggering protests that brought hundreds of thousands of white-robed Muslims to the center of Jakarta.
Rights groups said the sentence highlighted why the easily abused blasphemy law should be repealed.
