Lie Eng Hok

[4] Lie was born in Balaraja village, Tangerang Regency, Banten residency, Dutch East Indies on February 7, 1893.

[7] The first cohort of PKI recruits there were apparently all printing press employees, notably of the Dutch language paper De Banten-bode, and Lie was among them.

He got in trouble with the law in Serang, in September 1925 for trying to visit a colleague in prison and refusing to back down when permission was denied.

While operating the store, and buying and selling books in private homes, he would often act as a messenger for people sympathetic to the PKI or the Indonesian independence movement.

[4][5][1] However, in autumn 1926, police from Banten forwarded a request to Semarang to have him arrested on the suspicion that he had been involved in the PKI rebellion against the government there.

[2] While there, his refusal to collaborate with Dutch authorities put him among a small subset of prisoners who were denied proper housing or sustenance; he apparently survived for a time by repairing other inmates' shoes.