Indonesia jails activist lawyer over Islamic radicalism

JAKARTA, Indonesia (AP) — A former Indonesian human rights lawyer who joined an Islamic hard-line group has been sentenced to three years in prison on charges of incitement with the aim to establish a caliphate in a secular country. The three-judge panel at East Jakarta District Court found Munarman guilty of hiding information from authorities about militants pledging allegiance to the Islamic State group in January 2015 and instead giving a speech inciting people to carry out terrorism acts. Munarman was the general secretary of the now-banned Islam Defenders Front, which has a long record of vandalizing nightspots, hurling stones at Western embassies and attacking rival religious groups. He was arrested after the suicide bombing of a cathedral last year that wounded 20 people.