Credit: Nina / Flickr, CC BY-ND 2.0

An online protest movement has encouraged members of the public to raise the pirate flag from TV series One Piece in place of the Indonesian flag, The Jakarta Post reports.

The movement has infuriated the government ahead of the 80th anniversary of Indonesian independence on 17 August.

Natalius Pigai, the minister of human rights, said flying the One Piece flag was “an act of treason” which should be banned.

“The ban of flying the flag is an important effort to preserve our national symbols as a form of respect for the state,” he added.

Budi Gunawan, coordinating minister for political and security affairs, said those flying the flag could already face “criminal consequences” under a 2009 law criminalising insults to the national flag.

One Piece is one of the longest-running anime series still on the air, with more than 1,100 episodes broadcast since 1999.

The show follows a teenage boy with a rubber body who travels a fantasy world with his Straw Hat Pirates to find a treasure called “the One Piece” and become the next King of Pirates.

A live-action adaptation began airing on Netflix in 2023.