It’s an infuriating story. In spite of near-universal opprobrium, in spite of a myriad of evidence to the contrary, and in spite of common sense, Neil Bantleman and Ferdinant Tjiong are to spend the next decade in an Indonesian prison.

The case put forth might be more at home in a crude comedy than a real-life courtroom. When I hear that “magic stones” were part of the testimony of a key witness (frighteningly, one with a PhD), I can’t help it when the iconic witch trial of Monty Python and the Holy Grail comes to mind. The comparison is a good fit, too. Those who claim that the supposed rapes took place in a room with glass walls, during school hours, and in a crowded school of 2400 students seem to have a great deal in common with the villager who claimed that he’d been transformed into a newt by a witch, and who, when confronted, attests to having “got better.” On that note, why not add witchcraft to the charges? I think we can all agree that the accused men needed sorcery to pull that one off undetected.

But this case is no comedy. We’re talking about separating two unambiguously innocent men from their families for ten years. I can’t laugh at how the trial took place behind closed doors, nor do I find humour in how the defendants were barred from making statements to the press. Bantleman was allowed one statement, after the fact, and I have to concur with his assessment that the judges have acted in a manner that can only be described as “malicious” and “appalling.” Particularly galling was their rejection on technical grounds of the report of Singaporean doctors who examined one of the alleged victims, testimony which averred that the boy had not been sexually abused. Throughout, they have deferred to hearsay, baseless claims, and their own fancy over the testimony of experts and reasoning one with only a little good sense can make. Instead of conceding the obvious innocence of the defendants, they have instead chosen to ignore glaring holes in the prosecution’s case in the most scandalous way imaginable.

And why? What would compel such slanderous, cruelly destructive allegations? I can’t pretend to thoroughly decode the reasoning behind such shamelessly absurd charges, but I think I’m safe in saying that the $125 million law suit levelled at the school by the alleged victims families might just have played a role. Indeed, as the brother of Mr Bantleman claims, the criminal case only serves as a justification for the law suit.

Mr Conor Duffy, a Canadian national like Mr Bantleman, aptly reflects that “the case raises concerns about the security of any teacher, indeed of any individual, who calls another country their adopted home.”

The administration, too, is closely following the case. When asked for comment, Dr Andrew Davies, head of school, responded as following: “ISB, and indeed all IASAS schools, stand side by side with our colleagues at JIS in their fight for justice for Neil and Ferdi. It is a travesty of justice that would not be out of place in Arthur Miller’s The Crucible. We must hope that sanity prevails as soon as possible as families, friends, students and a school are missing too much loved individuals who have been wrongly incarcerated”

Perversely, we can only hope that politics make their way into the appeal process in the same way that money made its way into the initial sentencing; I’m wary of the Indonesian judiciary’s ability to come to a logical conclusion independently of having its feet held to the fire. All the same, given the inability of the Australian government to secure clemency for Andrew Chan and Myuran Sukumanran (Australian citizens sentenced to death for drug trafficking), I’m equally wary of the Indonesia’s ability to put pride aside even in the face of a diplomatic firestorm. It’s dirty business, and perhaps a hopeless endeavour, but the only thing we can do now is to keep up the pressure and stand in solidarity with the JIS community.

David Hallengren