The ongoing story of two Jakarta Intercultural School (JIS) teachers and five cleaners, who many believe have been falsely imprisoned for allegedly sexually abusing students at the school, has been off the media’s radar since the Indonesian Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision to overturn teachers Neil Bantleman and Ferdinant Tjiong’s guilty verdicts in February and re-sentenced them to 11 years in jail.
But supporters of Neil and Ferdinant, as well as the five cleaners, Agun Iskandar, Zainal Abidin, Virgiawan Amin, Syahrial and Afrisha Styani (plus another, Azwar, who allegedly died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody) have not forgotten about them. Not by a long shot.
Last weekend, one of those supporters, JIS kindergarten and elementary school principal Murray Hodgson, completed the 100km Jakarta Ultramarathon in order to raise money for the legal defense funds of the seven victims of the JIS case who are currently still in prison.
Neil’s wife, Tracy Bantleman, tweeted this video of Murray finishing the grueling race, which started on Saturday evening and went until Sunday morning.
Murray has raised over $16,000 dollars through his efforts so far and anybody who is interested in contributing can still do so through this site. Those who wish to contribute in other ways should check out this page on FreeNeilandFerdi.org.
The history of the JIS abuse case and the many glaring problems observers saw in both the police investigation and subsequent trials are thoroughly documented in this episode of Canadian television newsmagazine The Fifth State. Lawyers continue to work towards overturning their convictions.
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