In August 2025, the response to a wave of mass protests triggered by the government’s decision to increase parliamentary allowances while cutting budgets for education and human rights was brutal: more than ten people killed, 34 enforced disappearances, hundreds injured, and at least 6,700 arbitrary arrests. And what followed has been equally alarming.
Among those targeted are four human rights defenders: Delpedro Marhaen and Muzaffar Salim of the Lokataru Foundation, and university activists Syahdan Husein and Khariq Anhar. Their crime? Posting on social media, including a post informing student protesters of their right to peaceful assembly and providing a hotline for those facing arbitrary arrest. On 27 February 2026, prosecutors demanded a two-year prison sentence for all four, but
their cases are not isolated. In fact, over 6,700 people have been arrested in connection with the August protests, meanwhile, a civil society fact-finding commission found that at least 70 individuals were reportedly paid to provoke violence during the protests, yet it is the defenders and students who face prosecution, not those who incited unrest.
On 12 March 2026, Andrie Yunus, Deputy Coordinator of KontraS, the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence, was attacked by two unidentified individuals on a motorcycle in Central Jakarta, who threw a dangerous chemical liquid directly at him. He suffered severe burns to 20% of his body, including his face, eyes, chest, and hands. The attack occurred shortly after he had recorded a podcast on remilitarisation and Indonesia’s revised Military Law.
Andrie Yunus is a member of the independent fact-finding commission investigating the August 2025 protests, whose findings documented disproportionate use of force, mass arrests, alleged torture, and large-scale criminalisation of activists and civilians.
The targeting of those who speak truth to power in Indonesia is not limited to activists and legal defenders. Journalists face it too — and the methods used to silence them are chillingly deliberate.
In March 2025, Francisca Christy Rosana — known as « Cica », journalist and co-creator of a popular investigative podcast at independent magazine Tempo — received an anonymous parcel at the Jakarta newsroom addressed to her personally. Inside: a decomposing pig’s head. Days later, a second package arrived containing six decapitated rats. At the same time, her personal data was leaked online and members of her family received threats. The message was unambiguous: stop.
Cica had been investigating several sensitive stories at the time, including a legislative reform expanding the military’s power over civilian administration — an explosive subject in a country still marked by the memory of military dictatorship. She was forced to move home for security reasons. The police investigation has made no progress — an outcome that is, sadly, far from exceptional in Indonesia.
She continues regardless. « I was afraid, but I refuse to let terror silence me, » she has said. « There is no going back. Continuing is not just a job. It is a choice — to remain standing. »
These events are unfolding while Indonesia holds the Presidency of the United Nations Human Rights Council, this is a real contradiction. If a human rights defender can be attacked in broad daylight in the capital, and if defenders are prosecuted for informing citizens of their rights, the space for civil society in Indonesia is in serious danger.
