OUTSIDE the courthouse there were cries of “Allahu akbar”. Inside, a panel of five judges had just handed Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, the governor of Jakarta, a two-year prison sentence for blasphemy. The verdict delighted the Muslim activists who have rallied against Mr Basuki for months, derailing his campaign for another term. But for his fellow Indonesians of Chinese descent, it is an all too predictable injustice. As Maggie Tiojakin, a 37-year-old Chinese-Indonesian writer, puts it, “For most of us minorities this was expected. And it further confirms our fears that for as long as we live here, we will have to look over our shoulders.”

Chinese began settling in the islands that today make up Indonesia centuries ago. Many worked as merchants or traders, placing them in a position similar to that of Jews in medieval Europe: necessary, but often resented and persecuted. But others were miners or indentured labourers. Suharto, Indonesia’s longtime dictator, reportedly helped spread the canard that they comprised 3% of the country’s population, but controlled 70% of its economy—a wild overstatement on both counts. A recent study estimates that Chinese-Indonesians rank 18th among Indonesia’s 600-odd ethnic groups, with 2.8m people; they make up around 1.2% of the population. And although they account for a disproportionate share of the country’s billionaires, most Chinese-Indonesians are not rich.

Chinese-Indonesians, suspected as a group of having communist sympathies, were the victims of pogroms in the 1960s. Suharto, who rose to power at the time, adopted a policy of forced assimilation, obliging them to adopt Indonesian names, withdrawing Confucianism’s status as one of the country’s officially recognised religions and forbidding the teaching of Chinese. Ironically, he also boosted Chinese-Indonesians’ economic standing by barring them from government service, thereby pushing them into the private sector. The riots that triggered his resignation in 1998 targeted Chinese-Indonesians, killing around 1,100 people and destroying Chinese businesses.

Since Suharto’s downfall, things have improved. Confucianism’s status has been restored, teaching Chinese is now legal and Chinese New Year is a national holiday. The cabinets of successive presidents have featured Chinese-Indonesian ministers, often in prominent economic jobs. And a few Chinese-Indonesian politicians have emerged. Mr Basuki, better known as Ahok, first won election in 2005 as regent (district chief) in his home district of East Belitung, where roughly a tenth of the population is Chinese. He also served in Indonesia’s house of representatives before winning the post of deputy governor of Jakarta as the running-mate of Joko Widodo, or Jokowi, who is now Indonesia’s president. (Ahok became governor without an election when Jokowi was elected president.) His rise seemed to suggest that being a Chinese Christian was not a political handicap in a country where 90% of the population is Muslim and 95% of indigenous descent.

But Ahok’s failed campaign for a fresh term as governor tested that premise. It was hard to detect any insult to Islam in the speech for which he was taken to task by Islamist agitators, yet prosecutors charged him and the court convicted him. Indeed, the judges gave him a harsher sentence than prosecutors had requested.

His political rivals, meanwhile, showed no compunction about taking advantage of this travesty: the victorious candidate for governor, Anies Baswedan, took to campaigning in the white shirt and black skullcap of a pious Javanese Muslim. On election day two elderly Chinese voters in Glodok, Jakarta’s Chinatown, admitted that they feared once again becoming the target of rioters. Another prominent Chinese-Indonesian said he worried that Mr Baswedan’s victory heralded the first step toward imposing Islamic law.

Ahok’s sentence has reinforced such fears. Some worry Chinese will withdraw again from politics. Ms Tiojakin says she does not know “a single Chinese-Indonesian who does not in some way believe that 1998 [could] repeat itself”.