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WARSAW Poland's government-affiliated history institute said on Tuesday it had new evidence that Lech Walesa, who led protests and strikes that shook communist rule in the 1980s, had been a paid informant for the secret police in the 1970s.

A lawyer for Walesa, whose leadership of the Solidarity trade union contributed to the fall of communism throughout eastern Europe, said the evidence could be faulty and asked to question the assessors.

The Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) said a handwriting study had proved the authenticity of documents suggesting that Walesa, who was awarded the Nobel Peace prize and became Polish president, had collaborated with communist rulers.

It said he had provided at least 29 reports signed "Bolek", a codename long ascribed to Walesa, but did not say what they contained.

"There is no doubt," investigator Andrzej Pozorski told a news conference. "A handwritten agreement to collaborate with the Security Police from Dec. 21, 1970, was written in its entirety by Lech Walesa."

Pictures of the moustachioed former electrician being borne aloft by workers occupying the Gdansk shipyards became an inspiration for anti-communist movements across the Soviet bloc.

Walesa, now 73, has acknowledged once signing a commitment to inform, but he insists he never fulfilled it, and a special court exonerated him in 2000.

The issue has flared up again since the conservative, nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party of Jaroslaw Kaczynski, also a former anti-communist activist who fell out with Walesa in the 1990s, won power in 2015.

The PiS argues that Poland lost sight of its Catholic national identity and of social justice in the transition to democracy and eventual membership of the European Union.

Any suggestion that Poland remained under communist influence despite ending totalitarian rule in 1989 - notably that Walesa might have been controlled by former secret police as president in 1990-95 - strengthens the PiS narrative.

HISTORY BOOKS

"We don't want to remove Walesa from history books," IPN head Jaroslaw Szarek told reporters. "What changes is how he can be evaluated."

"Starting today, we can ask a new question: ... to what extent Lech Walesa's collaboration in the early 1970s determined his subsequent decisions ... in the 1980s and after 1989. This question remains open."

Pozorski said the IPN, set up in 1998 to investigate crimes "against the Polish nation", had reviewed 17 cash receipts and concluded they were written by Walesa.

Walesa's legal representative, Jan Widacki, said the examination did not amount to scientific evidence and asked to question the assessors.

"Walesa's handwriting today is not Walesa's handwriting from the '70s when he was a simple laborer," he told the public television channel TVP Info.

The documents surfaced last year at the house of a late communist interior minister.

The PiS campaigned in 2015 on a promise to help the poor, accusing past rulers of abandoning a vast number of working Poles when they instituted painful free-market reforms.

Walesa's defenders say that, whatever the authenticity of the documents, they cannot undermine his merits in leading efforts to shake off communist rule.

"His is a legend of a man who isn't born a leader but becomes one," historian Jan Skorzynski told the liberal daily Gazeta Wyborcza. "A man who, despite his weakness, could rise again and lead a movement. Perhaps his experience in the 1970s made him into such an effective leader during the 1980 strike."

Throughout post-Soviet Europe, historians have warned that communist-era secret police files are hard to interpret, because documents were sometimes falsified and witnesses coerced.

Historians have said Poland's communist government tried to dissuade the Nobel committee from awarding the Peace Prize to Walesa by offering falsified documents that he had collaborated when he led Solidarity between 1978 and 1981.

(Additional reporting by Marcin Goettig; Writing by Lidia Kelly and Justyna Pawlak; editing by Ralph Boulton)

WASHINGTON Nationals from the seven Muslim-majority countries temporarily blocked from entering the United States by President Donald Trump's executive order on immigration may not be granted admission any time soon, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said on Tuesday.

PARIS French police searched presidential candidate Francois Fillon's office in parliament on Tuesday as an inquiry into alleged fake work by his wife threatened his campaign and party leaders began to consider a 'Plan B' without him.

BAGHDAD The next round of United Nations-based peace talks on Syria have been scheduled for February 20, British ambassador to the United Nations Matthew Rycroft said on Tuesday.

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Institute says Poland's Walesa collaborated with communist secret police - Reuters

Mathieu Lericq is one of the co-organizers of a particularly original conference to be held in Paris next weekentitledCommunist Homosexuality 1945-1989. It brings together researchers from all over eastern and western Europeto discuss issues related to homosexuality in the days of communism. In additionto the symposium itself (scheduled for Feb.2 and 3 in Crteil and Paris) theresa series of events including exhibitions, films and liveperformances.

The period covered in the conferenceconcludes just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, which went upafter the Second World War. Its erection divided east and west Germany and marked the establishment of communist regimes under the leadership of the U.S.S.R..

Lericq is a PhD student at the University of Aix-Marseille and devotes his research mainly to an anthropological and political analysis offilm, specifically exploring the presence of non-standard bodies (homosexuals and other political outsiders) in the films. Following his first study abroadto Krakow, he chose to return toPoland in 2012 to live and work there.

Lericq told Unicorn Booty that he considered his experiences in Poland to be crucial experiences. His work and upcoming conferenceseekto question, unmaliciously, how history has brought together the concepts of homosexuality and communism, two words that have become laden with history, meaning and affect over the past decades.

Mathieu Lericq (photo Christophe Martet)

Why was your stay in Poland so important for you?

This stay was a crucial moment: I not only accepted my homosexuality, but also gradually discovered a whole homosexual life that I did not suspect. This part of the history of homosexuality is relatively unknown in Western Europe. It was also, at one point, a new field of research which presented itself, and meeting with a few Polish scholars, as well as artists, gave it its legitimacy in my eyes. After a few more studies, I decided to dedicate my PhD thesis to the presence of unusual bodies, especially homosexuals, in Polish films produced before 1989.

Image from the movie Misunderstanding (Nieporozumienie), de Piotr Majdrowicz (1978)

How would you describe these out of norms bodies?

Under communism, the social order was theoretically blendedwith the State, this being particularly problematic on the basis of Stalinism, which had re-initiated a penalization of certain behaviors, including homosexual acts in the U.S.S.R., as early as 1934. After the Second World War, the dignitaries of the peoples democracies continued the argument to define what was politically (and therefore socially) normal and what was not. What was normal was the basic family. It was difficult to think otherwise of the family nucleus than the classical, heterosexual family, even if in fact the models were necessarily destabilized.

What Im interested in is that at some point in the 1960s, and particularly after 1968, some bodies that were not included in that standard began to emerge and say that they exist, through magazines and through art. In Poland, the issue of homosexuality crystallized in the 1980s, especially at the time of Operation Hyacinth. An operation launched by the Polish police to list all the homosexuals of the country.Arguing it was for theprevention of AIDS that was making a lot of talk at the time. This action hadactually created an effective blackmail toolused by the political police for homosexuals. Thus homosexuals, desirous of emancipation through the creation of magazines and activities properly homosexual, would remain in the shadow. Nevertheless, the 1980s were a time of transformations, not just in Warsaw.

Was there homogeneity in the countries of the former Soviet bloc concerning the lawsor were somecountries more gay-friendly than others?

This question is of course linked to the history of communism itself. Communism had a turning point in 1934, when Stalin decided to return to normalization of Soviet society. All the gains in terms of female emancipation, for example, are questioned at this time, just as much as sexual freedom. Nor should it be imagined that things had been turned upside down after 1917, but certain rights had been acquired and gender equality had been relatively asserted.

When in 1945 the political form of communism was applied to eastern Europe, certain questions arose, such as how to respond to the liquidation, or at least the criminalization, of certain minorities who had been stigmatized during the Second World War. Obviously, homosexuals have often continued to be persecuted, and in other cases, legislation changed gradually during the 1960s.

But if we want to map the presence and legitimacy of homosexuality in different contexts, I would say that, on a purely legal level, some countries have decriminalized sexual acts between people of the same sex earlier than others. In Hungary decriminalization was decided in 1961. East Germany decriminalized them in 1967, a year before West Germany!

And what about Poland?

Poland is a somewhat peculiar case, since in 1932 the penal code no longer evoked homosexuality. This did not mean that socially, homosexuality was perfectly accepted. This meant, nevertheless, that we did not go to prison or to the gulag, for that. In U.S.S.R. on the contrary, there were heavy sentences, up to five years imprisonment, on grounds of homosexuality.

Sport inRussiain the30s (not credited)

Were there connectionsbetween homosexuals from the east inthe days of communism?

What I find interesting is that at that time, the Eastern countries formed a bloc and, as a bloc, fruitful relations were created between the homosexual citizens of several countries. A solidarity between the marginalized sometimes allowed to counter, at least to circumvent a little, the official penalization.

There are sorts of homosexual legends which tell that Hungary and Bulgaria were places well-liked by East European homosexuals. There was an air of freedom a little more assertive in very specific places, at any rate during the holidays. In Prague, there was a well-known bar, the Tekko, identified by the authorities.

It was discovered after 1989 that there were enormous numbers of homosexuals who, under the price of blackmail, had been placed under the spy of the Czech secret police; they were going to watch what was going on there. But in Prague, gay men and lesbian women mingled, especially in private parties, which is not necessarily the case in other contexts.

During the day, sociability was mostly around the public toilets. These places were stigmatized, police raids took place regularly. One can discover aspects of these realities in the last issue of the magazine DIK Fagazine n 11, published in bilingual English-French version especially for the conference.

In Poland, and in the socialist bloc in general, are there striking figures of homosexuality during the period 1945-1989?

Many artists have marked Polish culture with homoerotic works. I am thinking in particular of author Jerzy Andrzejewski, author of The Gates of Paradise (Bramy Raju, 1960). There is also Jarosaw Iwaszkiewicz. Their books are marked by very strong borrowing from a kind of nascent gay culture and a strong sexual tension between men, which can today be called homoerotic.

When Andrzej Wajda adapted Andrzejewskis book in 1968 to screen, he strongly invested this erotic tension. Witold Gombrowicz, author of the novel Trans-Atlantic (1957), an atypical bookthat tells of the relatively delusional Argentine wanderings, inscribed in this marginal life which he lived and which is devoted to homosexual practices. Recently, thanks to the publication of his diary, it was possible to verify that Gombrowicz had begun his homosexual attempts as early as 1934 in Poland, before living his homosexuality in Argentina and then when he returned to Europe.

I also haveto mention the great performers of the period: Krzysztof Jung and Krzysztof Niemczyk. They have invested homosexual corporalities, bringing into play their nudity and physical plasticity, carried by a provocative, subtle and committed spirit.

Another Way, by Kroly Makk (1982)

To open up to other contexts, the figure of homosexuality in Hungary is heterosexual. It is the director Kroly Makk. He was the first to make a film about love between two women in 1982: Another Way (photo above). Kroly Makk was interested in the social symptom of homosexuality at that time. The film is adapted from a novel by Erzsbet Galgczi.

What about Russianhomosexuals under communism?

Other known homosexuals lived under the Soviet regime, such as Slava Mogutin, who in the 1990s was the first Russian homosexual to be grantedasylum in the United States on grounds of homophobic persecution. He wrote the first texts on the history around the violence suffered by homosexuals in the post-war period in U.S.S.R..

I think, also ofa figure of the East German cinema who accepted his homosexuality very late, having had a wife and children. He acceptedhis homosexuality by making a film called Coming Out which was released on Nov. 9, 1989 in East Berlin, the day of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Some say, therefore, that East Germany has never experienced its coming-out.

In contrast, for some others, the film proves that there may have been, in extremis, a genuine exploration of homosexual desire as such in the German Democratic Republic (East Germany), and not merely the mention of homosociality on a journalistic level. In my opinion, this film has something very precious. In contexts where legal and social discrimination were applied more or less violently in different contexts, cinema was one of the first places of recognition of homosexuality in Central and Eastern Europe.

Do we know if there were any relations between homosexuals in the west and east during this period?

Relationswere mainly through magazines. I would like to mention here Ryszard Kisiel who created the first homosexual magazine, Filo, amagazine which was an information platform for Polish homosexuals, but also hada collection of articles from all over the world, distributedthrough the port city of Gdansk, where Ryszard was born and where he worked. He had access to a number of homosexual magazines from western countries.

On the other hand, magazines like Gai Pied in France were interested in the situation of homosexuals in Eastern Europe. During the 1980s, journalists like Catherine Durand traveled to Prague and Warsaw. Moreover, our conference is also a way to change the archetypes about how we lived behind the Iron Curtain in a particular historical moment where theres a tendency to forgetthe importance of these LGBT cultures in the East and their influences on western Europe.

One can also think of the East-West relations at the level of cinematographic culture. For example, the presentation of the Hungarian film Another Wayat the Cannes Film Festival in 1982, which won the Womens Interpretation Award, made it possible to point out in a West European context the situation of homosexuals, and in particular of lesbian women, in the East. Nor should we forget the importance of Radio Free Europe, which often spoke of dissident and minority groups; sometimes the sexual freedoms were studied there.

Bar in East Germany, year1989 (photo: Matthias Kittlitz)

Is 1989 really a turning point for homosexuals in (post) communist contexts?

Researchers are still wondering if 1989 is a caesura (i.e., a break) that corresponds to the end of something or the beginning of something else. The tendency in western Europe is to see 1989 as the beginning of democratization, whereas there are scholars like the historian Krzysztof Pomian who explains that it is the end of a battlebegun much earlier. By extension, it can be said that 1989 is a turning point rather than a true call of freedom.

Moreover, it would be a little caricatural to think that in 1989 the situation of homosexuals in Western Europe was completely appeased, and that in view of the total freedom enjoyed by homosexuals in the West, homosexuals in the East would be 30 years late. This view of things must be called into question today and, on the contrary, the extent to which the problematic of homosexuality remains very problematic in Western Europe in the 1980s. Things are progressing only gradually in terms of acquired rights, in both capitalist and communist contexts.

After 1989, homosexuals could form independent organizations. That was not possible before. This was all the more apparent at the time of the integration of the East European countries into the European Union. Societal issues have been debated, sometimes violently. This was particularly harsh in Romania, a country where the criminalization of homosexuality was abolished very late.

What is complex is that the history of homosexualities can never be seen at one level: when one considers it only at a political level or at a legal level, or at an artistic and cultural level, one misses a little the complexity of the presence and value of homosexuality. In some contexts, the cultural level may call into question the legal level. In some other contexts, the legal level may, on the contrary, call into question the political level. One of the stakes of the conference is to correlate these different levels of questioning. This also leads us to consider the complexity encompassed by the very notion of homosexuality, that it be defined as desire, as sociability and even as emerging identity.

Finally, I would say that if 1989 has really changed things, it is in the awareness of AIDS. Before that date, it was even forbidden in some contexts to produce or use condoms. That seems absurd today. On this point, there is considerable progress. On the other hand, homophobia is returning to the political sphere, and this should not have consequences for the social and medical management of AIDS.

How was yourproject initiated?

This conference was born of my meeting with Jrme Bazin, lecturer at the University Paris-Est Crteil, a few years ago during a colloquium in Berlin. We give the Paris conferencethe title of Communist Homosexuality, which may seem a little astonishing, even disturbing, but which for us, beyond its polemical character, seemed very stimulating.

Why did you organize this conference in Paris?

As French researchers, it seemed interesting to integrate our questions to the French context. This echoes a certain form of difficulty, if not skepticism, for research in France to address in a calm way the question of sexuality in general and that of homosexuality in particular. There is always a fear of the French academic environment today that, basically, to think about homosexuality would be to minimize everything to the question of gender. The latter remains as problematic in French society as in the academic world, whatever may be said of it.

Scientific culture centered on homosexuality must become central again, supported by homosexuals andheterosexuals alike. I would like to see this field of research become as important as when Andr Baudry, Roger Peyrefitte and Jean Cocteau founded the magazine Arcadie in 1954. The social value of homosexuality was at the time a highly invested field of research.

We must make the sad conclusion that apart from a very valuable journalistic contribution from gay magazines and a few books (especially those by Florence Tamagne and ric Fassin), French research has been shy about European homosexuality as a whole. To make this colloquy in Paris means therefore towish that Paris and the French academic milieu reclaims its pioneering role in the reflections on European homosexualities.

Is your approach a form of activism?

No, its not militancy. Its about finding a link with a lost story. From my point of view, it is necessary to put the cursor on the symptoms of our actuality, and one of these symptoms is the ignorance towards the homosexual populations of the East-European contexts. However, as Michel Foucault demanded, research must be the analysis of today.When we look at researchers who deal with homosexuality today in France, in all disciplines, and despite the existence of a few departments and institutions focused on sexual matters, scientific interest in these matters is very sporadic, too disjointed.

The idea underlying the organization of this conferencein Paris is also the idea of inviting all these researchers to come together and work together. Thus, even if the approach is not militant, it could help to focus interest on this relatively disparaged field of research, and thus give political value to the exchanges that the conference will generate.

The International conference Communist Homosexuality, 1945-1989and its screenings, meetings, debates and live performances run from Jan. 30 to Feb. 3, 2017.

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A Queer Academic Explains How Gay Culture Survived East European Communism (Photos) - Unicorn Booty (blog)

In Albania, communism still hurts BBC News 27 years since the fall of communism, Albania finally is opening up its secret police files. The secret service, known as Sigurimi was brutal. It relied on a huge network of civilian informers to crush any dissent and keep the communist regime in power ...

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In Albania, communism still hurts - BBC News

By Samuel Gregg*

Marxists, Marxist ideas and Marxist regimes have brought death and destruction to millions. Yet according to Pope Francis, if anything, the communists think like Christians. Whats going on here?

Within the first year of his pontificate, Franciss strong criticisms of economic globalization and capitalism resulted in him being accused of having Marxist sympathies. Such charges, however, are demonstrably false.

For one thing, Francis has specified that Communism is a mistaken idea. Back in a 2013 interview with the Italian newspaperLa Stampa, the popestatedthat Marxist ideology is wrong. Likewise, the Argentine home-grown theology of the people which hasinfluencedFranciss thought explicitly rejects Marxist philosophy and analysis. Nor has Francis hesitated to canonize Catholics martyred by Communist regimes. Hes even conferred a cardinals hat upon an Albanian priest, Father Ernest Troshani Simoni, who was twice sentenced to death by Enver Hoxhas dictatorship one of the very worst Communist regimes. These arent the words or actions of a Communist fellow-traveler or apologist.

Nevertheless, in the same interview in which Francis described Communism as wrong, he immediately added, But I have met many Marxists in my life who are good people. One wonders if the pope would say something similar, for example, about Nazis: But I have met many Nazis in my life who are good people.

Theres little in Marxist ideology (let alone practice) to suggest that communists think like Christians about very much at all.

Somehow, I doubt it even though political movements and regimes lead by Marxists and guided by Communist ideologies invariably embrace methods indistinguishable from those of National Socialist Germany. Indeed, if one goes simply by the numbers, Communistshaveslaughtered millions more people than the Nazis. In Pope Franciss Argentina, Marxist movements such as theEjrcito Revolucionario del Pueblohad no qualms about engaging in kidnappings and assassinations in the late-1960s and early-1970s as part of their effort to establish a dictatorship of the proletariat.

One possible interpretation of the popes words about Communism is that they reflect his belief that some people are drawn to Marxism because they regard Communism as being on the side of the worlds underdogs. During a 2015 interview, the popesuggestedthat Communists were, in a way, closet Christians. They had stolen, he said, the flag of the poor from Christians.

These themes resurfaced in a more recentinterviewof Francis this time conducted by the self-described atheist, the 92 year-old Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari.

Caution is advised when reading any of Scalfaris interviews. Scalfaris renditions of his conversations with prominent figures are based on memory rather than notes or recordings. Thats bound to raise questions about the veracity of whats written (not to mention the prudence of talking to Scalfari, but thats a different matter). Scalfaris questions are also designed to encourage the pope to make controversial remarks. In most cases, Francis politely deflects them.

At the same time, some of Franciss comments in his latest Scalfari interview mirrors odd statements hes made on other occasions. Consider what Francis says about Communists in response to Scalfaris comments about equality:

Eugenio Scalfari:So you yearn for a society where equality dominates. This, as you know, is the program of Marxist socialism and then of communism. Are you therefore thinking of a Marxist type of society?

Francis:It has been said many times and my response has always been that, if anything, it is the communists who think like Christians. Christ spoke of a society where the poor, the weak and the marginalized have the right to decide. Not demagogues, not Barabbas, but the people, the poor, whether they have faith in a transcendent God or not. It is they who must help to achieve equality and freedom.

The problem with these words is that the most cursory reading of standard Marxist texts soon indicates that theres little in Marxist ideology (let alone practice) to suggest that communists think like Christians about very much at all.

In the first place, Marxism is rooted in atheism and philosophical materialism. Christianity is not. Thats a rather fundamental andirreconcilabledifference. Second, virtually all Marxist thinkers and practitioners Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Che Guevara, Pol Pot, etc. hold that the ends justifies the means. Small o orthodox Christianity, with its insistence upon moral absolutes which admit of no exception, specifically refutes that claim. Third, Marxism, Marxists and Marxist movements dont see the poor as Christianity does: i.e., as human beings who need to be loved and assisted.

Communism views the poor like all human beings as simply moving-parts of the dialectics of history.

Instead Communism views the poor like all human beings as simply moving-parts of the dialectics of history. The economically less-well off, from a Marxist standpoint, have no intrinsic worth by virtue of their poverty or status as human beings. Such a materialist and instrumentalist perspective is light-years away from Christianitys view of those in poverty and human beings more generally.

So whatdoesFrancis mean when he says that the communists think like Christians? A clue to the popes thinking may be found with his references to equality in his most recent Scalfari interview. The pope argues, for instance, that

What we want is a battle against inequality, this is the greatest evil that exists in the world. It is money that creates it and that goes against those measures that try to make wealth more widespread and thus promote equality.

From his pontificates beginning, Francis has focused, laser-like, on this inequality theme. As the words above indicate, the specific inequality which the pope has in mind iseconomicinequality.

But is economic inequality really the greatest evil in the world today? Is economic inequality at the root of Islamic terrorism, dictatorial regimes like North Korea, the termination of millions of unborn-children in the West, resurgent anti-Semitism, or the relentless efforts to legalize euthanasia? Theres noevidence, for instance, that economic inequality causes terrorism.

Moreover, economic inequality isnt always wrong. Theresnothingin Catholic teaching to suggest that wealth and income inequalities are intrinsically evil. Theyre often quite justified. The person willing to take on more responsibility, for instance, in creating and managing an enterprise is usually entitled to a greater share of profits than the employee who assumes less responsibility and who didnt take the risk of starting the business in the first place.

Another thing that Christians should keep in mind but sometimes dont is that inequality and poverty arent the same thing. Its theoretically possible for everyone to be economically equal because they are equally poor. Its also conceivable for a society to have vast wealth and income disparities, and for the very same society to have very few people who are materially poor.

Of course, some forms of economic inequalityareunjust. One contemporary example iscrony capitalism. In these economic arrangements, collusion between businesses, politicians and regulators replaces free competition under the rule of law. If theres a major culprit (the money) for unjust forms of economic inequality today, its crony capitalists and their political and bureaucratic enablers.

Crony capitalism should be but isnt the target of Christian critique. Catholic social teaching says exactly nothing about the subject. Part of the difficulty with the popes commentary on these issues is that he, like many other good people, doesnt seem to recognize that market economies are premised on the rejection of governments granting privileges toanyparticular group. Thats the core argument made inBook Fourof Adam SmithsWealth of Nations(1776).

One of Pope Franciss many paradoxes is that, while he consistently and rightly denounces any idolatry of wealth and the type of materialist mindset which reduces everything to economics, the pope often articulates curiously economistic explanations for the worlds ills. Material poverty is something all Christians must be committed to working to reduce. Lets not pretend, however, that Christians and Marxists think the same way about poverty or equality for that matter. The simple truth is that they dont.

This article first appeared atThe Stream.

About the author: *Dr. Samuel Gregg is director of research at the Acton Institute. He has written and spoken extensively on questions of political economy, economic history, ethics in finance, and natural law theory. He has an MA in political philosophy from the University of Melbourne, and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in moral philosophy and political economy from the University of Oxford, where he worked under the supervision of Professor John Finnis.

Source: This article was published by The Acton Institute

The Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty is named after the great English historian, Lord John Acton (1834-1902). He is best known for his famous remark: Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Inspired by his work on the relation between liberty and morality, the Acton Institute seeks to articulate a vision of society that is both free and virtuous, the end of which is human flourishing. To clarify this relationship, the Institute holds seminars and publishes various books, monographs, periodicals, and articles.

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Does Pope Francis Really Believe 'Communists Think Like Christians'? OpEd - Eurasia Review

By Vincent Bevins By Vincent Bevins January 26

JAKARTA, Indonesia Religious radicals in Indonesia are clashing with the government after a cleric claimed he could see communist imagery hidden on the country's new currency.

Habib Rizieq, the leader of the militant Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) recorded comments last month in which he claimed new Indonesian rupiah notes carry the hammer-and-sickle, an iconic symbol of communism. On the notes, the letters B and I (for Bank Indonesia) overlap in a way that vaguely recalls the communist logo if you squint hard enough.

This may seem like a trivial dispute, but it's a provocative attack in the world's most populous Muslim nation, where hundreds of thousands of people (or more) were killed in the 1960s for being communists or suspected communists.

In 1965 and 1966, members of the military, along with civilians, systematically executed members of the Indonesian Communist Party (PKI) as well as many of its alleged supporters. The PKI had been accused of backing a military coup. In the decades of authoritarian rule that followed, communists continued to be portrayed as an evil, dangerous threat. When current President Joko Jokowi Widodo was elected in 2014, activists hoped he would apologize for the massacres or launch an official investigation. But Islamists, who still see secular leftism as a major problem, strongly opposed the idea, and Widodo took no major action.

Communist parties are still illegal in Indonesia, and Rizieq was questioned Monday by the police, who were investigating whether he slandered the bank by even making the claim.

Some members of the FPI assembled outside the police station to support Rizieq. The Islamist organization is notorious for carrying out violent raids against people it deems are committing un-Islamic acts.

There is a deep strain of anti-communism, particularly in the Muslim community, and it was made even more intense by the executions in the 1960s, said Gregory Fealy, a professor at Australian National University who has worked on politics and Islam in Indonesia. There continues to be conspiracies theorizing about the reemergence of communists, a lot of which are very fanciful, but they can really get people's imaginations going.

Fealy said accusations of crypto-communism are fairly common for Rizieq's group. This is de rigeur for the FPI, he said. Whether they believe there was really communist imagery there or not, they know this always will get a reaction.

But Rizieq's claim puzzled many Indonesians, who couldn't see the hammer-and-sickle no matter how hard they tried.

Gandrasta Bangko, a 35-year old marketing director in Jakarta, took to social media to mock the allegation. Just saw a cloud formation that looks like Palu-Arit, he tweeted, using the Indonesian term for hammer-and-sickle. Preparing lawyer team to sue anyone responsible for this s---.

An unsigned editorial published Tuesday in Indonesia's Tempo magazine said that we can rightly accuse Rizieq of suffering from acute communism-phobia. It is more laughable than criminal. The editorial argued that rather than focusing on absurd debates over phantom imagery, the group should be restrained by being held responsible for their actual crimes.

After speaking with police, Rizieq denied that he had improperly accused the government of communism but still didn't back down on his claim that the bills have threatening imagery.

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An Islamist militant group says Indonesia's new bills have secret communist symbols - Washington Post