(Bangkok) – Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto adopted policies in 2025 that benefitted military officers and lawmakers, generating widespread opposition and public protests, Human Rights Watch said in its World Report 2026. Security forces responded by detaining thousands demonstrating nationwide against rising economic inequality, while the military, combatting a separatist insurgency, cracked down on Indigenous Papuans and secured plantations and mining operations in the six Papua provinces.
“The Prabowo administration has increasingly deployed military officers in civilian affairs and offered benefits to lawmakers when many Indonesians are suffering economically,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of addressing the concerns raised by critics and protesters, the Indonesian authorities have brought baseless criminal charges, cracked down on demonstrations, and targeted Indigenous people, religious minorities, and journalists.”
In the 529-page World Report 2026, its 36th edition, Human Rights Watch reviews human rights practices inmore than100 countries. In his introductory essay, Executive Director Philippe Bolopion writes that breaking the authoritarian wave sweeping the world is the challenge of a generation. With the human rights system under unprecedented threat from the Trump administration and other global powers, Bolopion calls on rights-respecting democracies and civil society to build a strategic alliance to defend fundamental freedoms.
The following were other key developments in Indonesia during 2025:
As a former general, President Prabowo should be able to restrain the military, instead of giving them free rein to improperly interfere in civilian democratic rule. In particular this means ensuring that security force personnel implicated in serious abuses in the past or more recently face justice.
Source: Human Rights Watch
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