Jakarta – The Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras) has found 85 incidents of violence involving Indonesian Military (TNI) members over the last year (October 2024-September 2025).
This was contained in a Kontras report or policy paper delivered at a press conference titled "Addressing the 80th Anniversary of the TNI: Urging the military to return to the barracks", which was held at the Indonesian Human Rights Watch (Imparsial) offices in South Jakarta on Saturday October 4.
"We found that there were 85 [incidents of] violence by TNI members or soldiers with a breakdown of 182 people falling victim", Kontras Coordinator Dimas Bagus Arya Saputra said in his presentation.
Of that number, some 64 people suffered injuries, 31 people died and 87 others suffered treatment that should not occur in the context of a constitutional state such as intimidation and terror.
Saputra said that the forms of violence that occurred included 35 acts of persecution, 19 cases of intimidation, 13 acts of torture, 11 shootings and seven incidents of sexual crimes that occurred in a period of only one year of monitoring.
"Moreover, 53 incidents or 62.3 percent occurred after the enactment of the RUU TNI (the Draft Law on the TNI, March 2025)", said Saputra.
He said the incidents that occurred started from the western tip of the east of Indonesia, with the island of Papua being the epicentre of violence with 23 events. Saputra said that TNI violence in the past year resulted in as many as 67 Papuans falling victim.
Based on these findings, Kontras is proposing a number of recommendations.
First, asking the TNI commander and his officers to conduct supervision to prevent acts of violence against civilians, as well as impose sanctions on soldiers who commit violence and human rights violations.
Second, asking the TNI to evaluate the deployment of soldiers in the land of Papua and ensure that no civilians become victims, especially as a consequence of the excesses of armed contacts that are occurring in the land of Papua.
Efforts at national dialogue involving the TNI need to be built with all government partners both central and regional, civil society, academics, traditional leaders and religious leaders.
This should aim to find a point of clarity in formulating policies that are more oriented towards development, both human development as well as infrastructure and peace in Papua.
Then asking the government to stop the involvement of the TNI in National Strategic Projects (PSN) and review the formation of the TNI's development brigades and territorial battalions.
The Kontras report or policy paper was released ahead of the 80th anniversary of the TNI on Sunday September 5.
The structure of the report starts from the results of monitoring of violence by the TNI, the formation of new TNI units in Indonesia, the rulings by military courts against members of the TNI who have perpetrated abuses, the deployment of TNI forces to Papua and military intervention in the civilian domain including the academic world.
Monitoring of the data was carried out through an initial stage in the form of data collection, namely documentation of related events published in mass media reports during the October 2024-September 2025 period. (ryn/tis)
- The Kontras Policy Paper on Bahasa Indonesia titled "Kertas Kebijakan Hari TNI ke-80: Kegagalan Reformasi Sektor Keamanan dan Menguatnya Militerisme" can be accessed here: https://kontras.org/laporan/kertas-kebijakan-hari-tni-ke-80-kegagalan-reformasi-sektor-keamanan-dan-menguatnya-militerisme
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "KontraS: 85 Kekerasan Libatkan Prajurit TNI Setahun Terakhir".]
