This article is more than 1 year old

This article is more than 1 year old

Jakarta’s former governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, best known as “Ahok”, has been released from prison after serving out his controversial two-year sentence for insulting Islam.

The Indonesian politician was controversially jailed in May 2017 after a court found him guilty of blasphemy for a comment he made while campaigning for re-election.

Last year a movie documenting his life, “A Man Called Ahok” was released in Indonesian cinemas, igniting rumours he plans to resume his political career upon his release.

He walked free from the high-security Mako Brimob detention facility in Depok, West Java, early Thursday morning after receiving more than three months’ in remissions.

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Ahok – who in a recent letter from prison asked his supporters to refer to him by his initials “BTP” rather than his Chinese nickname – was met by outside the prison by supporters clad in red, blue and white shirts, chanting “BTP, BTP, BTP”.

The jailing of the former governor – who an anomaly in Indonesian politics as a minority Christian and Chinese – was widely condemned by rights groups, with critics saying the sentence was a blow to religious tolerance and free speech, while others suggested the Indonesian judiciary had succumbed to mob rule.

Doctored footage of Ahok’s comments – which made it appear he had directly insulted the Qur’an rather than the conservative Islamic clerics citing it – spread quickly in 2017, sparking huge Islamist-inspired political protests that have had a lasting impact on the politics of the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Supporters of former Jakarta governor Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, take a selfie in front of wreaths sent by well-wishers outside a police prison in Depok, Indonesia, on Thursday. Photograph: Tatan Syuflana/AP

The straight-talking politician did not appeal against his sentence, but strangely state prosecutors did – saying it was harsher than the sentence they had recommended.

But in a recent letter posted on his official Instagram account, Ahok said he would serve his time all over again.

“If we could go back in time and someone asked which would you choose [Going to prison or winning the election] I would say I choose to be imprisoned at Mako to study for two years, so that I could maintain self-discipline for the rest of my life,” he wrote, “If I were re-elected, I would have become more arrogant, rough, and I would have hurt people.”

Ahok became Jakarta’s governor in April 2014, inheriting it as then-deputy governor after Joko Widodo was elected president. He lost the gubernatorial race three years later.

Figures close to Ahok say he has voiced support for the re-election of Widodo in the upcoming April vote, even though the incumbent’s running mate Ma’ruf Amin, an elderly Islamic cleric, testified against him in the 2017 blasphemy trial.

To his fans Ahok was a politician who worked hard to improve the capital, tackling corruption, revamping public space, and reducing chronic floods and traffic, but his policy of forced evictions also angered many.

Often considered abrasive, in an interview with the Guardian he once jokingly referred to himself as the “Godfather of Jakarta”. During his time in prison Ahok has kept a low profile.