Responding to the sentence demands of the public prosecutor against Delpedro Marhaen and his three colleagues in the incitement case related to the August 2025 mass protests being heard at the Central Jakarta District Court, Amnesty International Indonesia Executive Director Usman Hamid said:
"The prosecutor is sending the wrong message that voicing criticism is a criminal act. This claim also justifies the 'silencing operation' scheme by the state against critics, which civil society has already warned about.
The demand for two years in prison under the articles in the incitement clearly violates human rights. The defendant's actions for which the prosecutor is demanding a prison sentence were actually a form of participation in expressing opinions and assembly, which is protected by the Constitution.
The defendants simply opened a complaints coordination post, monitored the situation in the field and accompanied students who were victims of arrest or revocation of their Jakarta Smart Card (KJP). This is not a criminal act. Likewise, satirical expression and sharing meeting information or expressing oneself on social media cannot be judged as incitement.
"Criminalising expressions of criticism against the state is not law enforcement but rather a form of malicious prosecution because it has no clear basis. This can be seen in the prosecutor's indictment which uses multiple articles, starting from the Information and Electronic Transaction (ITE) Law, the Criminal Code (KUHP) to the Child Protection Law to criminalise peaceful expression."
The legal process against the four activists and many other cases in Indonesia has from the start violated the principles of fair trial. This was clear from the arrests without warrants, confiscations without court permission, to the determination of suspect status without first summoning witnesses and presenting the case.
From the start, the government has built a false narrative that the August mass protests were the result of incitement by activists. In fact, the masses took to the streets because they were angry over state policies that were not pro-people, from tax increases to increases in allowances for House of Representatives (DPR) members. The peak of their anger occurred when the state reacted repressively, including when motorcycle taxi driver (ojek) Affan Kurniawan was run over by a tactical vehicle belonging to the police's Mobile Brigade (Brimob).
The government must stop looking for scapegoats for their failure to handle the series of violent actions that harmed demonstrations as freedom of expression in public. The government must withdraw all criminal prosecutions against activists and ordinary citizens who simply spoke out peacefully during the August 2025 protests.
The panel of judges must have the courage to break this succession of criminalisation cases by rejecting all the prosecutor's demands. Judges are not executive tools who agree with the ruler's narrative, but rather the last bastion of justice. If the judges punish Marhaen and his colleagues just for speaking out peacefully, then there is nothing that can prevent the birth of authoritarian practices.
It is time for the DPR and the government to stop silencing criticism and take steps in the form of revising regulations that are not in accordance with human rights principles. This is crucial in ensuring a safe space for freedom of expression and peaceful assembly in Indonesia."
Background
The public prosecutor (JPU) demanded a prison sentence of two years for the four defendants in the incitement case related to the August 2025 demonstration, namely Delpedro Marhaen, Muzaffar Salim, Syahdan Husein and Khariq Anhar, in the continuation of their trial at the Central Jakarta District Court on Friday February 27. The Public Prosecutor declared that the four defendants were guilty of the crime of public incitement, as regulated under Article 246 in conjunction with Article 20 letter c of the new Criminal Code.
The public prosecutor also demanded that the four defendants be immediately detained in the State Detention Centre. The next trial will hear the defendant's defence.
The prosecutor stated that the defendants created at least 19 provocative and confrontational collaborative posts during the period of the demonstrations at the end of August 2025 through Instagram accounts managed by each defendant. This content also included hashtags such as #IndonesiaGelap (Dark Indonesia), #IndonesiaSoldOut (Indonesia Sold Out) and #ReformasiPolri (National Police Reform).
At the initial trial on December 16, 2025, the public prosecutor indicted them under four charges ranging from spreading SARA-based (racial, religious and ethnic) hate speech, fake news that caused unrest, incitement and child exploitation.
In the four indictments, the prosecutor charged the defendants under multiple articles, including Article 28 paragraph 2 in conjunction with Article 45A paragraph 2 of the ITE Law in conjunction with Article 55 paragraph (1) of the 1st KUHP; Article 28 paragraph 3 in conjunction with Article 45A of the ITE Law in conjunction with Article 55 paragraph (1) of the 1st KUHP; Article 160 in conjunction with Article 55 paragraph (1) of the 1st KUHP and; Article 76H in conjunction with Article 15 in conjunction with Article 87 of Law Number 35/2014 on Child Protection in conjunction with Article 55 paragraph 1 of the 1st KUHP.
At the hearing to hear the defendants reading out their challenge to the indictment on December 23, 2025, the four defendants submitted at least four points of objection (demurrer), which included vague accusations (obscuur libel), unclear place (locus) and time (tempus delicti), elements of the offense that were not fulfilled, as well as the existence of non-legal motives that distorted the case process from the start.
However, at a hearing on January 8, the panel of judges rejected the defendants' demurrer on the grounds that the arguments they stated in the exception were already included in the main case. The panel of judges then ordered their trial to continue.
[Translated by James Balowski. The original title of the article was "Tuntutan jaksa atas Delpedro dkk benarkan "operasi pembungkaman" kritik".]
