Once again, the Indonesian state has revealed its loyalty to capital owners rather than its people. This time, a wave of protests by workers, students, and civil society was met with excessive violence, leaving casualties behind. An online motorcycle taxi driver was killed after being struck by a police Barracuda vehicle during the demonstration on August 28, 2025. Since the protests began on August 25, more than 1,000 demonstrators — including students and minors — have been arrested.
State repression through violence and torture is nothing new. For decades, the police have responded to dissent with water cannons, tear gas, armored vehicles, and even live ammunition. We still remember September 2019, when five students and protesters lost their lives — some from live police bullets. Between July 2024 and June 2025 alone, 55 civilians were killed: 10 through torture, 37 in extrajudicial killings, and 8 through wrongful arrests.
Across the archipelago, people’s demands for justice are answered with brutality. In Seruyan, Central Kalimantan, villagers of Bangkal demanding their land rights were shot at. In Buol, Central Sulawesi, residents opposing the exploitative partnership scheme of PT Hardaya Inti Plantation were criminalized and attacked by the Mobile Brigade. In Sambas, West Kalimantan, workers of Duta Palma (now Agrinas) faced threats and intimidation from the military after it took over the company.
The growing wave of protests across Indonesian cities is an outcry against systemic oppression and structural impoverishment, upheld and enforced by the state. Government policies continue to bleed the people dry through taxes, starvation wages, and precarious employment systems — contracts, outsourcing, exploitative partnerships, and day labor. Communities are evicted and their land seized. Meanwhile, public officials shamelessly enrich themselves, raising their own salaries and allowances while the people suffer.
The silencing of the people is not limited to Jakarta or to students. Plantation workers in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and Papua also face the same repression. This struggle is not confined to Indonesia — workers and communities in the Philippines, Malaysia, Cameroon, and Sierra Leone share the same fate under state-backed exploitation.
For this reason, we — organizations, individuals, and networks standing in solidarity — declare:
- We demand that the Indonesian government immediately end all forms of violence and gross human rights violations against workers, farmers, students, and civil society. The government must stop obstructing legal aid, release all arrested protesters, and restore their rights. The state must guarantee freedom of expression, opinion, and association.
- We demand that all officials, including members of parliament, revoke and annul all policies that strip away people’s rights, including the Omnibus Law on Job Creation, the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP), the Corruption Eradication Law (KPK Law), the Information and Electronic Transactions Law (ITE), and others.
- We demand that state officials cut their inflated salaries and allowances, and that funds allocated to the police and military be redirected toward improving public welfare, health, and education.
- We demand that political parties and the leadership of the DPR dismiss members who show contempt for the people and provoke public anger, including Ahmad Sahroni, Eko Hendro Purnomo, Adies Kadir, Deddy Sitorus, Nafa Urbach, Surya Utama, Rahayu Saraswati, and Sigit Purnomo Syamsuddin Said.
- We urge the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to monitor, investigate, and hold accountable those responsible for gross human rights violations carried out by police and military forces.
We also call on our comrades to:
- Strengthen unity across movements of workers, farmers, students, youth, environmental defenders, and human rights activists by building broad alliances.
- Keep up the pressure so that state officials serve the people, not the capitalists, nor their own self-interest.
- Organize — in unions, associations, and community groups — for only through collective struggle can victory be won.
- Build solidarity through mutual support, courage, and care for neighbors, relatives, families, and fellow workers.
August 29, 2025
To support this joint statement, please write the name of your organization and country in the following link:
Form to support the joint statement
We, the undersigned:
- Transnational Palm Oil Labor Solidarity Network
- Parti Sosialis Malaysia (PSM) – Malaysia
- Lembaga Informasi Perburuhan Sedane (LIPS) – Indonesia
- Serve the People Association (SPA) – Taiwan
- Partido Lakas ng Masa (PLM) – Philippines
- SYNAPARCAM – Cameroun
- Lingkaran Advokasi dan Riset (LINKAR Borneo) – Indonesia
- Asia Monitor Resource Centre
- North South Initiative – Malaysia
- Sawit Watch – Indonesia
- Tenaganita – Malaysia
- Palangkaraya Ecological and Human Rights Studies (PROGRES) – Indonesia
- KontraS Tanah Papua – Indonesia
- Komunitas Jaya Bersama (KJB) – Indonesia
- Koalisi Buruh Sawit (KBS) – Indonesia
- Sajogyo Institute – Indonesia
- Milieudefensie – Netherlands
- SP Bebunga Estate, FSPM-PMK – Indonesia
- Teraju Indonesia
- Agricultural Agro-Processing and Industrial Workers Union of Liberia
- Inside the trade Union of Liberia – Liberia
- Romanian Worker’s Association – Romania
- AWATUL – Liberia
- Women’s Network Against Rural Plantations Injustice (WoNARPI) – Sierra Leone
- Watch Indonesia! e.V. – Germany
- Cuttington University Workers Union – Liberia
- Bakers Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) – United Kingdom
- Just Economy and Labor Institute – Thailand
- Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) – Philippines
- World Rainforest Movement – Uruguay