Jakarta – About 100 workers demonstrated Thursday for the release of a jailed labor activist convicted of organizing a strike while former President Suharto was in power.

The rally came one day after 8,000 students demonstrated outside Indonesia's parliament in the biggest protest to hit the capital since violent unrest forced Suharto's resignation in May.

Like the students, the workers demanded an end to the Indonesian military's big role in politics and said the armed forces always favored employers in labor disputes. They staged their protest outside the attorney-general's office.

Their main demand was the release of Dita Indah Sari, who was convicted last year of organizing a strike by 20,000 workers in Surabaya, Indonesia's second-largest city in 1996. He was arrested in a nationwide crackdown on opposition activists and sentenced to six years in jail.

The workers, who came from diamond, electronics and shoe factories, also demanded the government lower the prices of basic commodities. Inflation has soared and millions of people have lost their jobs as Indonesia endures its worst economic crisis in decades.