Palang Hitam

How are you, LBH Bandung?

We are still alive here. Still speaking. Still waiting.

How are things out there? Is the work going well? Do the agendas keep moving forward as usual?

Meanwhile, we remain here. Ten people in the West Java Regional Police detention facility. Living day after day with one question that keeps returning:

Do we still exist in your eyes?

1. Last August, a widespread social uprising erupted in Indonesia. It began with demonstrations protesting tax hikes and pay raises for politicians. When the police killed the first person, the uprising escalated on August 28, and police stations and parliament buildings were set on fire, while politicians’ homes were looted. Can you say something about the conditions that led to the revolt at the end of last year?

One of the detainees arrested during the May Day 2026 protests in Bandung, RR alias Mpe, who was previously accused of being the “leader of an anarchist group,” has now been charged by the police under terrorism laws. He has also reportedly been placed in isolation and denied access to legal counsel of his own choosing, raising serious concerns over the violation of a suspect’s right to provide testimony freely and without coercion, intimidation, or pressure.

From Dark Nights

The following statement by Palang Hitam / ABC Indonesia was broadcast on air Monday, December 9th / between 11am – 1pm CET on Radio Blackout. The name of the show is “bello come una prigione che brucia” (Beautiful as a Burning Prison), a show broadcast since 20 years against prisons, repression, surveillance, military tech and AI. Radio Blackout is an autonomous radio (FM in Turin, Italy, and streaming elsewhere) born in 1992 as common project self managed by local squats, social centers and various collectives and individuals (antifa, anti authoritarian, anticapitalist, anti lots of things, with comrades from different areas of anarchism and communism).