Grabbed Land, Silenced Justice

Summary

In March 2024, six men in civilian clothes grabbed Sorbatua Siallagan, an elder of the Ompu Umbak Siallagan Indigenous clan in the Indonesian province of North Sumatra, when he and his wife were returning home after buying fertilizer. They bundled him into a van and drove away. His family and other villagers searched for the 65-year-old Siallagan for seven hours, fearing that he had been abducted, until they learned that he was being held at the regional police headquarters in Medan, some 160 kilometers from his home.

The authorities initially charged Siallagan with theft and arson, alleging that he had burned eight eucalyptus trees belonging to PT Toba Pulp Lestari Tbk, a publicly traded company, and cultivated land belonging to the company. Siallagan's arrest was just the latest incident in a decades-long dispute over 851 hectares of customary land that the community asserted the company had unlawfully acquired.

During the trial at the Simalungun district court, Siallagan testified that he had been working on ancestral land, not burning forests nor occupying forested areas. The company spokesman said that Siallagan's community did not appear on the list of 10 customary land claims submitted to them. In August 2024, the court found Siallagan guilty and sentenced him to two years in prison. On appeal, first the High Court and then the Supreme Court in June 2025 acquitted him, agreeing that ownership of the land was disputed.

Siallagan told Human Rights Watch that while he was gratified by the Supreme Court ruling, he was disappointed that police and prosecutors had accused him of crimes he never committed. Hengky Manalu, one of Siallagan's lawyers from the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (AMAN), said that his arrest amounted to criminalizing Siallagan himself. "He is the one leading his community in their fight to defend their land," Manalu said. "Such arrests are intended to deter other Indigenous communities from daring to resist."

Siallagan's case exemplifies the risks to communities when they fight to protect their land from unlawful natural resource extraction. Indonesia is the world's largest producer of palm oil, with companies clearing huge areas of forest and peatlands for oil palm plantations. Indonesia is also a major gold producer and the world's biggest supplier of nickel, a key material for steel-making and electric batteries.

While the Indonesian government claims that it is committed to responsible natural resource extraction, authorities, often acting on complaints from mining, plantation, and other company officials, or strategic lawsuits against public participation (SLAPP), have intimidated, threatened, and prosecuted Indigenous and other community leaders who fight for the right to ancestral land. The authorities have also targeted environmental and human rights defenders who defend these claims, or protest deforestation and pollution.

This report examines the more than a dozen laws in Indonesia used to silence protest over environmental harm, and details 15 emblematic cases in which the authorities targeted community leaders and environmental and human rights defenders. These cases, in the public record, are further developed through 69 interviews with Indigenous people, villagers, environmentalists, and lawyers.

Most cases in this report precede the current government of President Prabowo Subianto. However, his administration has failed to adequately address these abuses or take measures to bring about needed reforms.

Intimidation, Unfair Prosecutions, and Attacks

Many of those who spoke out against land grabbing, deforestation, and environmental harms have faced arbitrary arrest and prosecution.

The police arrest protesters and charge them under often vaguely worded and sweeping provisions of Indonesia's Criminal Code, the charges ranging from criminal defamation to theft. Instead of reforming the deeply flawed and antiquated colonial era code, the Indonesian parliament in 2022 adopted an even more draconian criminal code that came into force in January 2026. The government has tightened the provisions curbing freedom of association and speech.

The authorities have also used other legal provisions, notably laws and policies designed to regulate plantations and mining, to target activists and villagers. These include the Plantation Law, the Mineral and Coal Mining Law, and the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction Law.

According to the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia, WALHI), an advocacy group that promotes environmental justice, between 2014 and 2024, at least 1,131 people faced criminal cases for defending their land rights. This crackdown has persisted under Prabowo, and his policies expanding the military's role in domestic matters have had an added chilling effect on speech and criticism. In one case, a military court convicted four soldiers who had attacked the activist Andrie Yunus with acid, causing serious injuries. A military court found Yunus was attacked because he had criticized the administration's military policies, but imposed prison terms of just up to three years. In contrast, civilian courts could sentence anyone convicted of premeditated assault with up to 12 years in prison. The authorities did not seek to establish command responsibility for the attack even though police found that Yunus had been under heavy surveillance prior to the attack.

Often, the police act on complaints filed by companies or politicians to arrest and prosecute Indigenous villagers and others who had lived on or near land for generations and who depend on the land for their survival. Police have targeted communities living near plantations, mining, or government-backed "National Strategic Projects," including infrastructure and real estate development. Targeted villagers, community leaders, and rights activists risk spending months, sometimes years, appearing before various law enforcement agencies.

The Supreme Court, in several cases, has stepped in to release the victims of arbitrary arrests on appeal.

Indonesia's Constitutional Court on March 21, 2024, revoked articles 14 and 15 of the 1946 Criminal Code, which punish alleged "fake news" and incitement to riots, and article 310(1) on defamation. In deciding the case, a judge noted that, until the laws were overturned, "[t]he public no longer has the freedom to express opinions as a form of public participation in democratic life."

Even when functional, the justice process can take time, and causing those targeted anxiety, family disruption, and loss of livelihood. The activists Haris Azhar and Fatia Maulidiyanti, together with the Jakarta-based Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) and the Alliance of Independent Journalists, successfully sought judicial review of the 1946 Criminal Code after the two activists faced criminal defamation charges. Both were eventually acquitted but said that they suffered serious damage. Said Azhar: "I had to spend time and energy overcoming attacks from the oligarchs and the police. I lost opportunities to build my advocacy work and to develop my professional career."

Challenges under the Prabowo Government

While community leaders, activists, and others have long faced threats for calling for land rights and environmental protections, these issues have become further muddled after the Prabowo administration took office in October 2024.

As part of his crackdown on corruption, Prabowo has ordered the military to seize nearly six million hectares of private plantations, transferring a large portion to the state-owned PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara. After massive flooding and landslides in 2025 killed at least 1,000 people, the government admitted that massive deforestation and environmental degradation had fueled the disaster, and in January 2026, it revoked the permits of 28 plantation, mining, and hydro-dam companies on Sumatra Island, including PT Toba Pulp Lestari Tbk.

There is no indication, however, that the government will protect local communities or work to restore or clarify their land rights. "They are simply transferring power from the private sector to the state," said Benni Wijaya of the Consortium for Agrarian Reform. "The government must restore the people's rights." For instance, when members of the Ompu Umbak Siallagan community returned to their land to visit ancestral graves after the PT Toba Pulp Lestari Tbk license was revoked, company guards chased them away. "We hope the government will return our land so we can perform our sacred rituals," Siallagan said.

Meanwhile, the Prabowo administration has expanded military involvement in forest governance, further threatening local and Indigenous communities. Prabowo has said that he is determined to expand palm oil production and dismissed concerns over deforestation. "We don't need to be afraid of endangering-what's it called-deforestation, right?" Prabowo stated soon after becoming president. "Oil palms are trees, right? They have leaves, right?"

In January 2026, the police detained 11 Papuans for protesting the government's Merauke Integrated Food and Energy Estate project, which aims to convert nearly three million hectares of forest and swampland to grow rice, sugarcane, and other crops for food self-sufficiency. The project risks the customary land rights and livelihood of over 40,000 people from the Indigenous Malind, Maklew, Yei, and Khimaima communities. The government has deployed the military to implement the project and deter protests. Norton Kamuyen, a Malind resident of Nakias village, Nguti district, told Human Rights Watch that the military compelled his family to leave their home:

We once lived safely and without fear, free to forage in our forests. But since we disagree with the National Strategic Project, we are considered to be opposing the government. The military makes us afraid, so we have to leave our villages to find safety and protect our lives.

Since taking office, the Prabowo government has adopted laws and policies that undercut human rights, creating an atmosphere increasingly hostile to civil society. Amendments to the Armed Forces Law enacted in March 2025 permit military officers to hold more positions in government, increasing threats to democratic freedoms. Activists are concerned that a proposed bill forbidding "foreign propaganda" will target critics of the government. Prabowo has repeatedly denounced "foreign lackeys," raising fears of a crackdown on civil society groups that receive international assistance.

Contested Land Ownership

The crackdown on environmental defenders and community leaders is rooted in contested land claims.

Indonesia inherited a complex system of land ownership at the end of Dutch colonial rule in 1949. It provides the authorities wide leeway to allocate land to investors and businesses-particularly timber, plantation, and mining companies-with little effort at meaningful consultation and without paying fair compensation to individuals and communities who lose access to land and forests. This has fueled land conflicts, sometimes violent, between companies and local and Indigenous communities, especially in places such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and the six provinces of Papua.

Rather than address the underlying causes of these disputes, successive governments have adopted a range of confusing policies, crippling land reform and encouraging deforestation. There are at least 16 major laws regulating these sectors, with hundreds of implementing regulations, ministerial decrees, and regional bylaws detailing, and sometimes contradicting, their implementation.

In March 2025, nine United Nations human rights experts warned that Indigenous people living in 40 villages within and around the food estate project in Merauke regency, South Papua, would lose their livelihood and traditional rights. Villagers in particular complained of the heavy military deployment. Said Simon Petrus Balagaise, a Malind tribal leader in Merauke: "Bulldozers here are always guarded by soldiers with semi-automatic weapons."

In May 2026, Yasinta Moiwend, a Papuan woman in Merauke who had filed two lawsuits against the food project, disappeared after she was featured in a documentary that criticized abuses and land grabs targeting Papuans. When she later reappeared accompanied by Indonesian officials, she filed a complaint with the police against the filmmakers and the Merauke Legal Aid Institute, which had represented her in the lawsuits. Her family members, fearing that the authorities had abducted and coerced her, called on the government to ensure her safety.

Legal Obligations

Indonesia is a party to core international human rights treaties.

The Indonesian government is obligated to respect and protect fundamental rights and freedoms, including by preventing business enterprises from interfering with rural communities' rights to property and an adequate standard of living. The government also needs to ensure that victims of human rights abuses can access effective judicial and nonjudicial remedies. Businesses operating in Indonesia should fulfill their responsibility to respect human rights, even when governments fail to mandate this or monitor compliance.

The Indonesian government should review all laws related to land and natural resources and reform the new Criminal Code and other laws and regulations used to silence critics such that they meet international human rights standards. A vibrant civil society with access to information on the government's use of public assets such as natural resources is crucial to protect human rights as well as the environment. These steps are necessary for Indonesia to meet its international human rights obligations, including efforts to address unsustainable land uses, and increase state revenue collection for public welfare. Improving transparency and accountability is critical to stem the toll of agrarian violence affecting the nation's rural poor and to ensure that citizens can speak out without fear of reprisal.

While efforts to slow deforestation for commercial agriculture in the past usually have been voluntary and mostly failed, Indonesia should recognize that international markets have increasingly high expectations for the sustainability of timber and agricultural produce. Notably, the European Union's Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR) stipulates that cattle, coffee, cocoa, palm oil, rubber, soy, and wood products will eventually only be placed in the European common market if they are deforestation-free.

Organizations like AMAN and WALHI contend that the government should recognize and protect Indigenous land rights. Arimbi Heroepoetri, who helped set up AMAN, said that Indonesia should end the stigmatization of Indigenous peoples especially with official terms like "perambah hutan" (forest encroachers), "suku terpencil" (isolated tribe), or "nomad people." "Indonesia should change many of the laws and regulations if it is to stop deforestation and help mitigate the climate crisis," she told Human Rights Watch.

Key Recommendations

• The Prabowo administration should publicly order law enforcement agencies to stop harassing and wrongfully prosecuting environmentalists and Indigenous peoples who are asserting their rights to customary territories against plantation and mining corporations.

• The government should support the Indigenous Rights Bill in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, recognizing the customary land rights of Indigenous communities after consultation with Indigenous peoples' groups and civil society organizations working on agrarian reform.

• The European Union should ensure timely and robust implementation of the EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR), effective from December 30, 2026, in which Indonesian companies must provide detailed information for exports to the EU, including geolocation data, to prove products are deforestation-free such as palm oil, cocoa, coffee, rubber, soy, and timber. Other governments should adopt similar policies.

• Domestic and foreign companies should strengthen due diligence standards-including environmental, social, and governance standards-when using water resources and lands, and abide by Free, Prior, and Informed Consent protocols when dealing with Indigenous communities and other traditional landowners.

Methodology

For this report, Human Rights Watch conducted 69 phone and in-person interviews with villagers, Indigenous and environmental activists who were victims of or witnesses to abuses, as well as lawyers, academics, and government officials from January 2025 through June 2026.

Human Rights Watch examined more than 50 cases from 2015 to 2025 from the islands of Java, Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, and the Moluccas, as well as the six provinces of Papua to select 15 high-profile cases as examples of specific laws and legal provisions used to target activists and community leaders, including in SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) actions. The authorities have also used other legal provisions as well.

Interviews were conducted in Indonesian. The interviewees were informed of the purpose and scope of the interview. Interviewees were assured that they could end the interview at any time or not answer any question. We informed interviewees that the information gathered would be used in Human Rights Watch's reporting. They checked their respective quotes in this report, which were then translated into English. All interviewees gave oral consent. We provided no compensation for those who participated.

Human Rights Watch sent 12 separate letters with relevant questions to Indonesian companies in the mining, logging, and plantation industries regarding the findings of this report and followed up with phone calls where possible. Human Rights Watch had not received any responses to our questions as of July 15, 2026.

I. Contested Land Ownership in Indonesia

Indonesian authorities have long targeted environmental activists and members of Indigenous communities over disputed land claims. In recent years, successive Indonesian governments have significantly expanded natural resource exploitation, often acquiring land traditionally used by Indigenous communities, leading to forced displacement, deforestation and loss of customary rights.

The disputes over land are rooted in Indonesia's complex land ownership regulations established during Dutch colonial rule, which lasted until the Second World War and formally ended in 1949. The land laws do not adequately protect the customary rights of Indigenous people, forcing communities to protest discriminatory practices, forced evictions, land confiscations, widespread deforestation, water pollution, and peatland destruction. When community leaders and activists protest and try to defend their land rights or their customary forest, they risk intimidation, physical assault, and baseless criminal charges.

Activists have also raised concerns about political patronage that enables large companies to acquire land. In July 2025, Agrarian Minister Nusron Wahid said that just 60 families in Indonesia "control" 48 percent of the 56 million hectares of land certified for building or cultivation. In 2022, the National Land Agency reported that just 1 percent of the population controls about 58 percent of certified land in all categories.

Independence and Land Rights

During the Second World War, Japan invaded what was then the Netherlands Indies, defeated the Dutch in March 1942, and promised to establish a new Republic of Indonesia, setting up an independence preparation committee in May 1945. The committee recognized that land ownership was complicated after two centuries of Dutch rule, split between European-style land rights for Europeans and other foreigners such as ethnic Arabs, Chinese, and Indians, and the legal regimes of hundreds of sultanates and rajahs controlling various parts of the archipelago based on customary or adat land law.

On August 17, 1945, after Japan had surrendered to the Allied Forces, the committee backed Sukarno, a political leader, and Mohammad Hatta, a prominent economist, to declare Indonesia's independence. In the new constitution, adopted on August 18, the committee declared, "Land, water and natural resources contained therein are controlled by the state and used maximally for the welfare of the people." That single sentence would go on to create dozens of contradictory laws and hundreds of government regulations on land and forest management in Indonesia. However, the Dutch would not formally transfer sovereignty over Indonesia until December 1949.

The 1960 Basic Agrarian Law

In 1955, Indonesia held its first legislative election. There were high expectations that the new republic would deliver benefits to the predominantly rural and impoverished population, including by way of land reform. But the election did not produce a clear majority, triggering disagreements, which later prompted President Sukarno to disband parliament.

Sukarno approved a new Basic Agrarian Law on September 24, 1960, to end the dualism of land titles. It states that Sertifikat Hak Milik (Right to Own) is granted to Indonesians as the highest form of hereditary land or property ownership. Corporations, including those with foreign shareholders, can hold specific land titles like Hak Guna Bangunan (Right to Build) and Hak Guna Usaha (Right to Cultivate for Business), which are typically granted for a set period of up to 35 years, but can be renewed up to a maximum period of 80 years. The law accepted Dutch colonial land titles, and the many documents issued by the sultanates and the rajahs, until they expired or were converted to registered land certification.

The implementation of land reform, the cornerstone of the Basic Agrarian Law, depended on complex enabling legislation intended to limit the size of individual land holdings and redistribute surplus agricultural lands. The law required the government to provide every peasant family with a minimum of two hectares of arable land, an "arithmetic impossibility" on crowded Java Island, according to Australian scholar Rex Mortimer. The redistribution process was slow, leading to growing public support for the Indonesian Communist Party.

Crackdown on Communism and Failed Land Reform

On September 30, 1965, a group of soldiers abducted and murdered six army generals, claiming they were carrying out a preemptive coup. The coup failed, but the army and its supporters, led by Maj. Gen. Soeharto, determined this to be a communist plot, and began a purge of suspected members and sympathizers of the Indonesian Communist Party. By 1969, at least 500,000 people had been killed, with some estimates putting the total at well over one million.

The 1965-1969 massacres dramatically reversed the political fortunes of those promoting land reform. However, despite its negative association with communism, land reform remained a popular concept in rural Indonesia.

After General Soeharto replaced President Sukarno in 1968, land reform was sidelined by large-scale transmigration programs, shifting landless peasants from Java to Outer Island settlements, such as Kalimantan and West Papua, and the commercialization of agriculture. By the 1980s, the Soeharto government had begun exporting palm oil and timber, rapidly deforesting vast tracts of land, especially on Sumatra and Kalimantan Islands.

Extractive Industries, Oil Palm Plantations and "Food Estates"

In May 1998, President Soeharto stepped down amid nationwide violence following the Asian economic crisis. Subsequent governments have further propelled mining and oil palm plantations for export.

Land acquisition continues to be governed by Indonesia's complex legal framework applicable to forests, plantations, and mining areas. In total, there are at least 16 major laws regulating these sectors, with hundreds of implementing regulations, ministerial decrees, and regional bylaws.

Decentralized mapping is also a problem: the National Land Agency (Badan Pertanahan Nasional), the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Forestry, and the Ministry of Energy and Minerals all have different, and sometimes conflicting, maps. Additionally, the Indonesian government's reporting of deforestation has often underestimated real deforestation on the ground due to a series of methodological choices.

The Indonesian government has been reluctant to recognize Indigenous rights to lands and forests especially on the Outer Islands such as Sumatra, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and Papua. The 1960 Basic Agrarian Law does not hold the same meaning for customary (adat) landholding groups in the Outer Islands because these communities traditionally depended on shifting cultivation, requiring extensive areas for forest regeneration. These communities have to first be formally recognized as "customary law communities" (masyarakat hukum adat) by their local government, a costly process that can take years. Only then will the national government, especially the Ministry of Forestry, which controls the most of "state lands," consider their land claims. Rikardo Simarmata, an agrarian expert at the Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta said:

On Java Island, the government recognizes the existence of individual customary lands (bekas hak adat). These customary lands in Java are supported by ownership documents such as girik or land tax payment [receipts]. Outside Java, the government does not recognize the existence of customary land because the communities there cannot show ownership documents. Consequently, the properties, which are socio-anthropologically customary land, are considered or declared to be state land, with these communities losing their traditional land rights.

Forest Watch Indonesia, a research organization in Bogor, said that large corporations have taken significant control of land and water in eastern Indonesia, which includes the Moluccas archipelago and the six Papuan provinces. In North Moluccas province, 44 licenses for nickel mining cover a total land area of 201,000 hectares. In the Papuan provinces, corporate groups control between 6 to 10 percent of forests and lands. Gunawan Wiradi, a researcher on agrarian change at the Bogor-based Sajogyo Institute, concluded that land ownership inequality in Indonesia is "structural."

Since Prabowo became president in October 2024, large-scale land-based projects have increased. Prabowo announced a program to achieve food self-sufficiency for Indonesia by creating three million hectares of food estates across the country. Two million hectares will be in the Merauke regency of South Papua province, while the rest will be in Sumatra and Kalimantan, and risk displacing local communities including Indigenous people.

The Indonesian government has targeted Papuans in Merauke in South Papua province who oppose food and energy projects causing displacement and deforestation with harassment, criminal prosecution, and demographic change. Settlers now occupy their land. "The Indigenous community in Merauke is just too small," said John Teddy Wakum of the Merauke Legal Aid Institute. "The Indigenous people are now only around 70,000 of the total population of 220,000 people."

Five battalions of soldiers in South Papua guard the food estate. "We protest peacefully, using the red cross and doing customary rituals, with dancing and singing," said Simon Petrus Balagaise, a Malind tribal leader in Merauke. "But even such a protest could risk our livelihood." In March 2025, nine UN human rights experts raised concerns about the project.

In January 2025, Prabowo set up the military-backed Forest Area Enforcement Task Force (Satuan Tugas Penertiban Kawasan Hutan), chaired by Defense Minister Sjafrie Sjamsoeddin and headed by top prosecutor Febrie Adriansyah. In its first 10 months, the task force seized and transferred all the plantation land deemed to be illegally occupied national forests to the state-owned PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara, making it the largest plantation company in the world. In January 2026, Prabowo revoked the licenses of 28 plantation and mining companies on Sumatra Island because they had violated forest regulations, leading to landslides and flooding in three provinces in November 2025. But it is not clear whether these seized lands will be reforested while Prabowo has repeatedly downplayed concerns over increasing deforestation.

In July 2026, the task force itself began facing serious corruption allegations leading to police investigations.

Protecting Traditional Land Rights, Environment, and Climate

Indigenous communities and climate activists have for decades opposed government policies to destroy village land and forests to make way for plantations or mining. Many Papuans are opposing the national food self-sufficiency project, fearing displacement. Others are protesting against corporations and their multinational partners, including Chinese battery producers, who are clearing rainforests for nickel mining, or setting up new coal plants to process nickel, leading to severe water and air pollution. Mei Christhy, a Dayak herbalist in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, said that the forest is their home and livelihood, and needs to be protected. "These forests hold our future," she said.

In 1990, a group of conservationists and activists set up the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Wahana Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia, WALHI), which has been supporting communities in the Outer Islands defend their lands and forests. In 1993, several groups set up the Indigenous Peoples Rights Defenders Network (Jaringan Pembela Hak-hak Masyarakat Adat). In 1999, more than 400 communities established the Indigenous Peoples Alliance of the Archipelago (Aliansi Masyarakat Adat Nusantara, AMAN), which now includes over 2,400 communities nationwide with an estimated 40 million members. The Registration of Indigenous Peoples (Badan Registrasi Wilayah Adat, BRWA) is helping to research, map, and document traditional lands in a bid to secure formal ownership, and has already registered 1,753 communities on over 28.7 million hectares nationwide.

Members of these groups and Indigenous communities routinely face harassment, intimidation, and prosecution. For instance, in November 2024, a court sentenced Gustina Salim Rambe to five months in prison for obstructing vehicles while protesting a nearby palm oil mill that residents said was causing smoke pollution in schools. The company that operated the mill, PT Pulo Padang Sawit Permai, denied causing pollution.

Environmental activism is risky under the Prabowo government, which has shown little tolerance for peaceful protest. Security forces have repeatedly cracked down on protests, including the Indonesia Gelap (Dark Indonesia) demonstrations in February 2025 against government austerity measures; protests in March 2025 against amendments to the Armed Forces Law that increased the military role in civilian affairs; the rallies in May 2025 seeking labor rights protections; and the August 2025 protests against economic inequality after the government announced new perks for lawmakers.

Several activists have also been victims of unexplained deaths. Family members of environmental defenders allege that they were killed for their activism. For instance, Rudolfus Oktafianus Ruma, a teacher in a state school and a protest organizer with the Coalition of Young People's Groups for Climate Change, which opposes geo-thermal projects on Flores Island, was found hanged on September 5, 2025. His colleagues allege that he was murdered for his activism and his death made to look like a suicide.

The deaths of at least three other environmental activists since 2016 raised concerns of alleged killings.

Yohanes Balubun, a human rights lawyer and the head of the Maluku Archipelago chapter of AMAN, died on April 8, 2016, at a hospital on Ambon Island after he was found unconscious on the road, slumped over his motorcycle. The police concluded that he had died in a traffic accident under the influence of alcohol, but his colleagues and family members as well as an investigative journalist, who had seen the autopsy report and the site of the crash, suspect that he may have been killed.

Muhammad Yusuf, a journalist in Kotabaru, Laut Island, died in custody on June 10, 2018, after having been detained for more than five weeks on criminal defamation charges. Yusuf had reported that a company was planning an unlawful oil palm plantation on Laut. The police said he died of natural causes, but his wife, Arvaidah, said that the police ignored her pleas that Yusuf receive medical care for stomach and cardiovascular illnesses. The authorities did not investigate or hold anyone responsible for Yusuf's death in custody.

Golfrid Siregar, a lawyer for the North Sumatra chapter of WALHI, died on October 6, 2019, three days after he was found unconscious with severe head injuries on a traffic overpass in Medan, North Sumatra. The police said Siregar had been drinking and lost control of his motorcycle. His relatives pointed out that Siregar's motorcycle had minimal damage, and that his clothes were covered in mud even though the area where he was found was paved. His laptop, wallet, ring, and phone were missing. Three men were convicted of stealing Siregar's valuables before bringing him to hospital. However, according to his family, although Siregar had received death threats related to his work, the police did not pursue allegations that he may have been murdered.

In East Kalimantan, police arrested 60-year-old Misran Toni on July 22, 2025, and accused him of killing a fellow activist named Russel. Misran Toni is among the residents of Muara Kate, a rice-producing village in Paser regency, East Kalimantan, who were protesting the giant trucks used by PT Mantimin Coal Mining company because they caused potholes, traffic snarls, and serious accidents. In October 2024, after a truck rolled backward and overturned, killing a young pastor, the villagers, Misran Toni among them, had blocked the road, preventing the trucks from operating.

Village leader Warta Linus said that early on November 15 he received a phone call that there had been an attack at the villagers' blockade post. He told Human Rights Watch that when he reached the location, he found two injured protesters, Russel, 60, and Anson, 55. Russel died on his way to the hospital; according to medical reports, his throat had been slit. Anson also had knife wounds, but survived. Police arrested Misran Toni saying that they had found Russel's blood on his shirt. However, villagers said that Misran Toni was not at the site when the two activists were attacked and possibly got the blood on his shirt when he arrived later and helped lift Russel onto a stretcher.

Misran Toni was detained in the East Kalimantan police headquarters. On April 16, 2026, the Tanah Grogot district court acquitted Misran Toni. Windy Pranata of the Mining Advocacy Network, which provided legal assistance and helped Misran Toni and his family, sought an apology from the East Kalimantan police. Meanwhile, the police have yet to identify and prosecute those responsible for Russel's death.

II. Criminal Code Provisions Used to Stifle Protests, Peaceful Expression

Successive governments in Indonesia have clamped down on critics of development projects, whether activists, journalists, environmentalists, or members of Indigenous communities, violating their right to peacefully protest and demand their land rights. Activists have also frequently come under pressure from companies, or face attacks from unidentified people who are believed to be affiliated with companies, who commit criminal offenses with impunity.

In 2020, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry reported that there are 25,863 villages in and around forest areas-about 30 percent of total villages in Indonesia-or 9.2 million households, that traditionally use forest produce. The environmental rights group AMAN has documented 687 agrarian conflicts, with dozens killed for their activism, at least 925 Indigenous persons criminally prosecuted, and 60 reported acts of intimidation. Indonesia's human rights commission, Komnas HAM, received 2639 complaints linked to agrarian conflict in 2020-2024, which included disputes over plantations, mining, infrastructure, and national strategic projects.

President Prabowo, after taking office, has continued these policies, saying in January 2025: "I think in the future we have to increase our palm plantation areas. We should do it without fear of being accused of causing deforestation.… The oil palm plants are trees, right? They have leaves, absorb carbon dioxide."

The Prabowo administration has not adequately protected the rights to freedom of speech and association. Prabowo has often dismissed his critics as "foreign lackeys." His government has proposed legislation to "combat disinformation and foreign propaganda," which will further facilitate the targeting of government critics and civil society groups. The government has raised additional concerns by expanding the military's role in civilian administration. "The current fears are fueled by Prabowo's military character and the involvement of military in various civil affairs, particularly issues linked to land and natural resources," said Abdon Nababan, an Indigenous rights advocate.

Activists said that corporations often enjoy state protection that enables them to seize land without adequate consultation or appropriate compensation. "In my experience, no land grab in Indonesia, at least from my observations in South Kalimantan, can proceed without police backing, " said Diananta Putra Sumedi, a journalist based in Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan, who was jailed in 2019 for three-and-half months in a criminal defamation case for reporting land grabbing.

Indonesia's 1946 Criminal Code retained colonial-era restrictions on freedom of speech and expression, and included sweeping provisions on defamation, treason and blasphemy that were repeatedly used against environmental activists. Then President Joko Widodo, instead of seeking rights-respecting reforms, introduced a new Criminal Code in January 2023 that made restrictions even more rigorous.

The new Criminal Code, which came into force in January 2026, includes dozens of articles on online and offline criminal defamation that contravene international human rights standards. The blasphemy chapter in the new Criminal Code has six articles instead of the previous one, albeit with shorter prison terms, but this still contrasts with the global trend to either not enforce blasphemy laws or to scrap them altogether.

Indonesia has more than a dozen criminal defamation laws that undermine free speech, some in the Criminal Code or in other laws, including the 2023 Internet and Electronic Transaction (ITE) Law. In 2024, the cybercrime directorate of the national police summoned for questioning university students Christina Rumahlatu and Thomas Madilis under the ITE Law because they had protested alleged environmental damages caused by a nickel production center on Halmahera Island.

In several cases, the Supreme Court has stepped in to protect constitutional freedoms. But even then, the justice process can take time. Meanwhile, those targeted endure anxiety, family disruption, and loss of livelihood.

Some corporations even drag out the process through so-called Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation (SLAPP) to exhaust and harass communities, filing a range of complaints including defamation, theft, abduction, or blackmail. Their targets have included journalists and environmentalists, as well as farmers and fishermen who cannot afford travel costs for police interrogation, court appearances, or legal fees.

Criminal Defamation

Articles 433 and 434 of the new Criminal Code prohibit defamation as a criminal offense. Article 433 specifically replaced article 310 of the older code, defining the crime of defamation in four formats-oral, written, image, or digital media-with the maximum penalty of nine months in jail. Article 434 covers the inability of the defendant to prove the substance of their alleged defamatory act with the maximum penalty of four years in prison.

Criminal defamation is an egregious means to curb peaceful criticism. The UN Human Rights Committee, the independent expert body that monitors compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, states in its General Comment on freedom of expression that "imprisonment is never an appropriate penalty" for defamation and that "all public figures ... are legitimately subject to criticism." Indonesia's criminal defamation law targets "the act of making a public accusation ... with the aim of attacking someone's honor."

While there is no official data on prosecutions and convictions for criminal defamation in Indonesia, a digital map by SAFEnet, a freedom of expression group, and Jaring, a news organization, shows that hundreds of people faced criminal defamation cases nationwide between 2013 and 2023. Many more have faced cases since. After protests in August 2025, for instance, the police accused at least three organizers of criminal defamation in their social media posts. The Central Jakarta district court acquitted them on March 6, 2026.

Challenging Criminal Defamation

In August 2023, human rights defenders Haris Azhar and Fatia Maulidiyanti, together with the Jakarta-based Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation and the Alliance of Independent Journalists, sought a judicial review of the criminal defamation laws. This was after Azhar and Maulidiyanti faced criminal defamation charges based on a complaint filed by Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, a minister in the cabinet of then-President Widodo.

On August 20, 2021, Maulidiyanti, the coordinator of KontraS, a human rights organization, participated in an interview on Azhar's YouTube channel to talk about human rights abuses in Indonesia's Papua provinces. They discussed a report by 10 groups, including KontraS, that found that the government had conducted "illegal military operations" to evict the Indigenous population in the Central Highlands, in part to gain access to gold deposits on Mt. Grasberg, an area known as the "Wabu Block" in Intan Jaya regency, Central Papua. They also discussed the business interests of Pandjaitan, a retired four-star general.

On August 26, 2021, Pandjaitan filed a civil complaint against the two activists, demanding an apology and damages of IDR100 billion (US$6.7 million). After Haris and Maulidiyanti rejected the demand, Pandjaitan filed a criminal defamation complaint against them at Jakarta police headquarters on September 22. Prosecutors charged the two activists with defamation and "spreading false news" under the criminal code, and slander under the Internet Law. Azhar, a human rights lawyer, said that they faced enormous pressure:

I had to spend time and energy on overcoming attacks from the oligarchs and the police. I lost opportunities to build my advocacy work and to develop my professional career. I also delayed my plan to study for a doctorate. My time with my family was also reduced.

The weekly hearings during their trial, however, soon turned into a protest site, with activists amplifying the court proceedings through a loudspeaker. The Alliance of Papua Students, wearing their traditional attire, sang and danced outside the district court to support the activists. Foreign diplomats also attended the hearings. Some media began livestreaming the trial. On January 8, 2024, the East Jakarta court acquitted Haris and Maulidiyanti.

On March 21, 2024, Indonesia's Constitutional Court, after hearing from expert witnesses that criticized the use of criminal defamation laws, nullified articles 14 and 15 of the 1946 Criminal Code (on false information that can cause riots) as unconstitutional, and article 310, paragraph 1 (on defamation). The judges found that these articles violated rights guaranteed in the constitution. They found that the article proscribing false reporting was ambiguous and lacked clear benchmarks, thus restricting the right to express opinions or constructive criticism, and that the use of the word "riot" could lead to multiple interpretations.

According to SAFEnet, there were 146 cases of digital freedom of expression violations in 2024, involving 170 individuals as victims or reported parties in Indonesia. In 2025, a total of 351 violations were recorded, with 344 victims, mostly associated with 2025 street protests over benefits for members of parliament and the rising cost of living and unemployment, resulting in clashes between security forces and protesters.

Luhut Pandjaitan filed an appeal in the Supreme Court, but it was denied.

Blasphemy

Articles 300 to 305 of the 2026 Criminal Code expand the 1965 Blasphemy Law. Previously, there was only a single article that "protected" six officially recognized religions in Indonesia. The new code broadens the blasphemy coverage, still using the verb phrase penodaan agama (to insult a religion), but adds the word kepercayaan (belief). The 1965 law has long been used to target religious minorities, including Indigenous peoples, and has been a tool for politically motivated prosecutions.

Catholics Allege Blasphemy

While most blasphemy cases target members of religious minorities who comment about the Muslim religious majority, in May 2025, Cece Geliting, who was accused of "committing blasphemy against Catholicism" on social media, had to apologize or risk six years in prison.

Activists believe that the lawsuit was filed to silence criticism of a Catholic-owned company. On January 22, 2024, PT Kristus Raja Maumere, a company owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Maumere, Flores Island, had used excavators to destroy over 100 houses and evict residents. The villagers, from the Soge Natarmage and Goban Runut-Tana Ai Indigenous communities, said they have customary right over the land. In 2005, the company had received permission to develop the land, and though the permit lapsed in 2013, it obtained an extension in 2023. The Indigenous community opposed the extension of the permit and refused to leave, living among the ruins of their destroyed homes.

Cece Geliting, a salon owner, criticized the demolitions by posting a cartoon depicting a Catholic priest with an excavator. This prompted the United Catholic Youth Forum, a local group, to accuse her of blasphemy. The police dropped the case after Geliting apologized.

Treason

Articles 191 to 195 of the 2026 Criminal Code bans makar (treason) with a maximum sentence of death. These articles replace the seven treason articles, 104 to 110, that were grouped into a chapter entitled "Crimes Against the Security of the State" in the 1946 Criminal Code.

During Dutch rule, thousands were imprisoned for treason including Sukarno, the future first leader of independent Indonesia. It has been used since independence mostly to target Indigenous Papuan and Moluccan activists who champion greater autonomy or independence, including rights over land and forest.

Indonesia's Papuan provinces are the country's most underdeveloped and poverty-stricken territories, and deforestation is rapid. Most protests by Papuans, whether against deforestation, land grabbing, peatland destruction, or for political and civil rights, include unfurling the Morning Star flag, originally adopted in 1961 during the Dutch administration as a territorial flag. The authorities routinely arrest people and accuse them of treason because they consider the flag to be a symbol of secessionism.

The most widely known is the case of Filep Karma, who had frequently opposed land grabs, deforestation, and other human rights abuses in the Papua provinces, and was convicted of treason in 2004 and released under a prison reduction program in 2015.

Nutmeg Farmer Accused of Treason

In February 2023, Antonius Latumutuany, a clove and nutmeg farmer, joined his neighbors in protest after government officials marked out 10 villages in Tehoru and Telutih districts to be cleared for a planned expansion of Manusela National Park. The villagers held demonstrations against Indonesia's Forest Area Designation Bureau under the Ministry of Forestry.

During the protest, Latumutuany raised the Southern Moluccas Republic flag, which the authorities consider to be a symbol of separatism. He sent a picture to some friends, which one of them posted on social media. "I wanted to grab the government's attention to revise its plans," he told Human Rights Watch.

Police from Masohi, the capital of Central Moluccas regency, arrested Latumutuany and seven of his family members on March 17, 2023. A police officer hit Latumutuany on the head during the arrest. "They were detained and questioned for a month," said Wiwi Surlialy, Latumutuany's wife. The police later released the seven relatives but charged Latumutuany with treason.

In September 2024, the Masohi district court found Latumutuany guilty under article 106 of the Criminal Code and sentenced him to three years in prison. After he filed an appeal, the Supreme Court reduced his sentence to two years in prison. He was released on March 16, 2025.

The Bogey of Communism and Marxism-Leninism

Article 188 of the 2026 Criminal Code makes it a criminal offense to disseminate communism, Marxism or Leninism-orally, in writing, or through other media-with a maximum penalty of four years in prison.

On March 12, 1966, the Soeharto government banned the Indonesian Communist Party and prohibited all activities that could lead to the spread of communism and Marxism-Leninism. After that, during Soeharto's more than three-decade rule, his government often used the threat of action against communism to silence public criticism. Even after Soeharto stepped down in May 1998, his anti-communist legacy remains deeply rooted in Indonesia. In 1999, the Indonesian parliament amended the Criminal Code, adding provisions criminalizing the dissemination of communism and Marxism-Leninism, which is used to target activists.

In 2017, paramilitaries and Islamist groups led a violent "anti-communist" demonstration in Jakarta, attacking the Jakarta Legal Aid Institute and accusing it of hosting a meeting of the long-outlawed Communist Party of Indonesia.

Communism Charge for Environmental Protection

In 2016, Heri "Budi Pego" Budiawan helped organize protests against PT Bumi Suksesindo, a gold mining company that villagers alleged had polluted the water, air, and soil in Banyuwangi, East Java. For this, several villagers were harassed and faced multiple prosecutions.

On April 4, 2017, the villagers organized a protest outside the gate of PT Bumi Suksesindo offices. They first gathered at Budi Pego's house to paint their banners. There were about 50 villagers, but many others, including journalists, came to see the protest. "We put up 10 banners, but then several people we didn't know appeared," Budi Pego said.

The protesters got into trouble after someone that the villagers had assumed was a television journalist asked them to pose for a picture. Dwi Ratna Sari, one of the protesters, said:

We didn't recognize anyone but knew that a group of journalists had arrived. One man brought a camera. He said, "Come on, miss, let's take a picture of everyone. Come on, guys, so it looks crowded. We will put it in the media." So, all the villagers, and even some onlookers, posed with the banners in front of the office.

The day after the protest, two army officers came to Budi Pego's house, accusing him of spreading communism. They showed him the photo, which included a new banner, one that had the hammer-and-sickle symbol of communism. Budi Pego says the photo was doctored:

They said, "There was a picture of a hammer and sickle." I asked, "Which banner?" The 10 banners we had made were still intact. The banner in the photo was not at home. They showed me the photo. This was just to set me up, their evidence is only a photo.

Budi Pego said the mining company had complained that the protesters were "communist infiltrated." On September 4, 2017, the Banyuwangi district court sentenced Budi Pego to 10 months in prison. He appealed, saying that the mysterious banner was not theirs and it was never presented at the court. In October 2018, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the lower court, declaring that he was spreading communism, and sentenced him to four years in prison. Budi Pego spent 20 more months in prison until November 2024, when he was granted parole. He said the villagers were continuing their fight, but were demoralized. "I have concluded that it's impossible to find the truth and to seek justice in Indonesia," he said. "The court has never presented that particular banner, only the photo. Our strength has been weakened."

Ira Rachmawati, a journalist who has covered the protests since 2012, when the mining operations began, said that none of them saw the mysterious banner in downtown Banyuwangi when the other banners were made in Budi Pego's house. "Until now, we still do not know who made that banner," Rachmawati said. "That banner was never presented during the trial. Where is it?"

Laws on Mob Attacks and Abduction

Both the old and new criminal codes include article 170 for "group assault or violence against people or property" with a maximum penalty of five years and six months in prison unless the victim suffered serious injury or death. The 2026 Criminal Code provides an added financial penalty. The new article 333 replaces articles 445 and 446 (using violence) in the old code, prohibiting taking hostages or depriving individuals of liberty.

These laws have been used against communities that gather to defend their land or forest. Satrio Manggala, a lawyer at WALHI, said companies and non-state actors have weaponized these laws to file criminal complaints when protests become undisciplined and result in property damage. "The cases are mainly about street protests against land grabbing, involving many villagers or Indigenous peoples," Manggala said. "Sometimes these protests became chaotic, with some destruction, burning tires, smashing windows or blocking streets. The penalties should be fines, but in these cases the penalties are mostly prison terms."

Protest Against Rempang Eco-City Project

On September 11, 2023, the Barelang police detained nearly 40 people for protesting the Rempang Eco-City project, a development that is expected to be accompanied by the eviction of about 7,500 islanders. Barelang stands for Batam, Rempang and Galang Islands-the three main islands in the Riau Archipelago province which are connected by six bridges.

The planned eviction followed an agreement to develop industries on the island. This includes a glass factory, a planned joint venture of the Batam Indonesia Free Zone Authority (BP Batam), and a local company, PT Makmur Elok Graha, working in partnership with China's Xinyi Glass. PT Makmur Elok Graha is a subsidiary of Artha Graha Group controlled by Tomy Winata, a prominent businessman. Xinyi Glass later denied its participation in the project.

Villagers not just from Batam and Rempang, but also from West Kalimantan, Siak Riau, and Lingga, where ethnic Malay live, gathered outside BP Batam office to protest the proposed relocation of 16 villages. They said that the relocation would harm their livelihood, which depends on fish, crabs, shrimp, and other seafood. The protesters tried to break the BP Batam gate and threw stones, prompting the police to use tear gas and water cannons to disperse the crowd, which led to more stone-throwing. Some police officers were injured. The police arrested dozens of protesters, accusing them of "violence against security staff and property."

On December 18, 2024, a security officer at the Rempang Eco-City project removed a protest banner at the entrance to the Sembulang Hulu neighborhood. Angry residents held him while awaiting the police. This prompted dozens of Eco-City security staff to come to the neighborhood in their trucks, demanding that the residents release their colleague. In the altercation that followed, eight residents and a security staff member were injured. The residents released the security officer unharmed.

On January 30, 2025, Barelang police charged three residents-Siti Hawa, 67, Sani Rio, 37, and Abu Bakar, 54-under article 333 of the Criminal Code, accusing them of abduction based on a complaint from Eco-City company officials. Following an intense public campaign, the Barelang police dropped the charges in February. The accused had pro bono representation from the Batam-based Saron Rose Legal Aid Institute and support from Jakarta-based rights groups.

The residents continued their protest, calling on the government to cancel the "strategic national project" status, which allows faster land acquisition procedures. In April 2025, the Prabowo government revoked that status. However, the government has been offering to move the residents under a transmigration program to other islands.

Theft and Arson

Articles 362 (ordinary theft) and 363 (theft with aggravating circumstances) of the old Criminal Code have been used, beyond the common crime of theft, to target individuals who opposed land acquisition and development projects, or who harvested forest products from ancestral lands. In the 2026 Criminal Code, article 477 replaces article 363 with similar prison terms, a maximum of seven years (or nine years if the theft is done collectively), but the new article has an added financial penalty of up to IDR500 million (US$35,000).

In October 2020, the Indonesian parliament passed the controversial Job Creation Law, which is sometimes used along with the Criminal Code to target environmental defenders and punish anyone who occupies, encroaches on, or carries out activities in a forest area without a permit with a maximum penalty of up to 10 years in prison and heavy financial penalties.

"Stealing" from a Pulp and Paper Company

On March 22, 2024, plainclothes police arrested 65-year-old Sorbatua Siallagan near a market where he was with wife purchasing fertilizer in North Sumatra. The police roughly pushed Siallagan into a van without explanation. His wife alerted others in the community, but it took them seven hours to discover that Siallagan had been taken to Medan, the provincial capital of North Sumatra, 159 kilometers away from his village. He was later charged with theft and arson, including allegedly burning eight eucalyptus trees belonging to PT Toba Pulp Lestari Tbk, a publicly traded company. He was also charged under article 78(2) and (3) of the Job Creation Law for "illegally occupying" the land.

Siallagan's arrest was part of a longstanding dispute. The Ompu Umbak Siallagan Indigenous community in Dolok Parmonangan, Simalungun, North Sumatra, had been struggling for decades to regain their traditional land. On its website, PT Toba Pulp Lestari says it controls 167,912 hectares of "industrial plantation forest" in North Sumatra. Siallagan, a leader of the AMAN Tano Batak chapter, had publicly campaigned for the release of the land to his community.

During the trial at the Simalungun district court, Siallagan argued that he was only working on his community's "ancestral land," not stealing or burning trees. AMAN activists and other nongovernmental groups attended the trial and called for his release.

PT Toba Pulp Lestari's spokesperson said that Siallagan's community "never appeared" on the list of 10 customary land claims submitted to them, which had been "resolved through the Social Forestry Partnership."

The Simalungun court found Siallagan guilty and sentenced him to two years in prison and a fine of IDR1 billion (US$700,000). The judges ruled that the land belonged to the company, citing data from the Ministry of Forestry.

On appeal, the North Sumatra high court in Medan overturned the lower court's decision and concluded that the land had belonged to the community "for generations." Prosecutors took the case to the Supreme Court, which rejected their appeal in June 2025, resulting in Siallagan's acquittal.

In January 2026, the Prabowo government revoked the permits of 28 companies on Sumatra Island, including PT Toba Pulp Lestari, after authorities linked their alleged forest misuse to floods that killed more than 1,000 people in November and December 2025. According to the government, the 12 permits to these companies spanned a wide range of land uses-logging, oil palm plantations, pulpwood plantations, mining, and hydropower-covering more than a million hectares.

The government's decision led to negative reviews from two rating companies and the stock market plummeted about 8 percent in late January 2026. Later, officials said that the 28 companies could appeal the decisions in court.

Sorbatua Siallagan welcomed the Prabowo government's move to revoke PT Toba Pulp Lestari Tbk's permit but said that company's security personnel still patrolled the overlapping territory. "They wouldn't let us in," he said. "My friends were angry." Siallagan said he hoped the Indonesian government would act to let the community return to their land, including for sacred rituals. "We ask the government that the land used by the company be truly returned to us," he said.

Threatening Violence

Article 368 of the 1946 Criminal Code penalized threats of violence as an act of extortion. The authorities have used this provision, in addition to others, to prosecute protesters and activists. The same provision is retained as article 482 in the 2026 Criminal Code with a maximum penalty of nine years in prison.

Detained for Actions Seeking to Protect Rainforests

After a decade of conflict, in September 2024, Indonesia's powerful Harita Group, a business conglomerate, announced that its subsidiary PT Kemakmuran Berkah Timber would cease all logging and commercial activities in the Long Isun community's Indigenous territories.

The Long Isun area in Mahakam Ulu regency in East Kalimantan comprises over 80,000 hectares of forest land. The Dayak Bahau tribe have managed the forest for generations. In 2009, PT Kemakmuran Berkah Timber began to acquire concessions in Mahakam Ulu regency. In 2014, the company began to cut trees based on those concessions, which overlapped nearly a quarter of the Dayak Bahau customary territory. The people of Long Isun challenged the company claims based on a 1966 map accepted by all the communities of the Upper Mahakam. When the villagers attempted to clarify the boundary by inspecting the site, the company filed a complaint with the police.

In August 2014, Djuang Hajang, the village head of Long Isun, and Lusang Arang, the customary chief, wrote to the company asking them to stop felling trees until the boundaries had been settled. They said the company did not respond. The elders sent Theodorus Tekwan Ajat and two other young men to the company's field office in Long Isun to ask officials to halt the logging. Tekwan Ajat said that when the staff did not assist, he confiscated the key to a heavy machine, as well as two chainsaws, and demanded a response from the company.

Based on a complaint filed by PT Kemakmuran Berkah Timber on August 29, 2014, the Mahakam Ulu police arrested Tekwan Ajat, and charged him with "extortion using violence" under article 368 of the Criminal Code.

Once news of the arrest spread, the community gained national and international support including from AMAN and WALHI, as well as from the Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco and the Forest Peoples Program in London. They alleged that the company cut down pristine rainforests in Mahakam Ulu.

The Mahakam Ulu police released Tekwan Ajat in December 2014 after 109 days in detention. But he has remained at risk. "Tekwan is a tribal figure, outspoken regarding Harita Group's operations," said Asep Firdaus, a legal consultant for the Samarinda-based Nurani Perempuan, the organization supporting the Long Isun villagers. "It seems he is being targeted for criminal prosecution.

Climate advocates lodged a formal complaint concerning the Long Isun forest concession with the Forest Stewardship Council, the world's largest timber certification system, headquartered in Bonn, Germany. In 2017, the Forest Stewardship Council revoked the company's certification, making it difficult to export timber, particularly to Europe. This prompted the Harita Group to negotiate with the Long Isun community. The government mediated an agreement in 2018 that temporarily stopped PT Kemakmuran Berkah Timber from logging in Long Isun. The Harita Group gave up the project in 2024.

The forests remain vulnerable without land rights recognition. Said Tekwan Ajat: "It's difficult to trust these land mafia despite their promise not to cut trees in Long Isun." The Dayak Bahau community is now seeking formal customary land protection.

III. Other Laws Used Against Activists and Local Community Members

In recent years the Indonesian government has enacted a new online speech law and new laws ostensibly to regulate the mining and plantation sectors, all of which have been used against communities that contest government and company projects that affect ancestral lands and land use and against activists who oppose the projects.

Information and Electronic Transaction Law

Apart from the Criminal Code, Indonesia has more than a dozen criminal defamation laws that undermine free speech, including the 2023 Internet and Electronic Transaction (ITE) Law. The authorities have arrested hundreds of people under this law since it was first enacted in 2006 and later amended. Amnesty International reported in August 2025 that 758 people were charged under the law between January 2018 and July 2025 in 710 criminal cases alleging hate speech and defamation.

Environmental activist Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan was sentenced to seven months in prison in 2024 under the ITE Law for his social media comments against a shrimp farming project in the Karimun Jawa Islands off the northern coast of Central Java. After he was acquitted on appeal, he filed a petition challenging the defamation provision in the ITE Law at the Constitutional Court. On April 29, 2025, the Constitutional Court partly upheld his petition, replicating a previous ruling on the criminal code, and barring public officials, groups, and corporations from filing defamation suits under the ITE Law against their critics, saying that such charges can only be brought by individuals.

The 2014 Plantation Law

When the Indonesian parliament passed the 2014 Plantation Law, article 107 outlined criminal sanctions for various illegal activities related to plantations. The law was supposed to ease agrarian conflict, but police have used the law to arrest Indigenous people that oppose land takeovers.

Dayak People Arrested for Protesting Oil Palm Plantations

On March 7, 2020, several Central Kalimantan police officers flew from Palangka Raya to Jakarta to arrest James Watt, a farmer, from a WALHI guest house, where he was seeking legal assistance regarding land disputes in two Dayak-majority regencies: Kotawaringin Timur and Seruyan. James Watt, a local AMAN leader, had been helping residents of Penyang village in Kotawaringin Timur to defend their land rights against the PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada oil palm plantation, a subsidiary of Best Agro International owned by the Tjajadi family of Surabaya.

In February 2020, the police arrested two Dayak farmers, Hermanus and Dilik, from Penyang village, accusing them of stealing palm fruits from the plantation. Company officials complained that Penyang villagers had "harvested" palm fruits from their concession land and that James Watt had instigated over 100 villagers in this theft. Penyang villagers said the 117-hectare area where the palm fruits were allegedly stolen was their land, and not part of the company's cultivation rights.

The police charged James Watt, Hermanus, and Dilik under article 107 of the 2014 Plantation Law. While in detention awaiting trial, Hermanus repeatedly suffered asthma attacks. Watt said the police did not take Hermanus' complaints seriously until it was too late. Hermanus died at the Sampit general hospital on April 26, 2020.

On June 15, 2020, the Sampit district court found James Watt and Dilik guilty under the Plantation Law, even though Indonesia's National Land Agency had concluded that the contested 117-hectare area was not covered by the company's land title. The court ruled that since James Watt had written a letter calling for "harvesting," it was an order to steal from the company. James Watt was sentenced to 10 months in prison, while Dilik received an 8-month term.

James Watt told Human Rights Watch:

The Indigenous community's rights were lost, and those who dared to question that decision were criminalized. The governor [of Central Kalimantan] wrote a letter, declaring that those 117 hectares were outside the company's HGU [right to use land]. His letter was simply ignored. The 10 months in prison is not a short time for me. The dramatic arrest in Jakarta, the detention, poor prison cells, and losing a friend, they all have a psychological impact. My good name, my time to be with my three children, my responsibility to find food for my family, to take care of my farm, these are losses that I must bear. They grabbed our lands, silenced those that sought justice. The injustice is clear.

The communities have continued to demand their land rights. On October 7, 2023, Dayak farmers blocked a village road in Bangkal to prevent PT Hamparan Masawit Bangun Persada's trucks from passing. When police used tear gas and fired at the protesters to disperse the blockade, one Dayak farmer was shot and killed, while another was injured. The Palangka Raya district court found a police inspector, Anang Tri Wahyu, guilty for "negligence which had caused serious wound" and sentenced him to 10 months in prison.

Mineral and Coal Mining Law

The 2020 Mineral and Coal Mining Law at article 162 imposes a penalty of imprisonment for up to one year or a fine of up to IDR100 million (US$6,000) for anyone who obstructs or disrupts legal mining activities. Activists said that the police, often acting to benefit mining companies, use this law to target communities who protest land takeovers and to silence criticism from rural communities or Indigenous peoples' groups. "In almost all cases, there is an overlap with police involvement," said Imam Shofwan, the networking manager of Jatam, Indonesia's mining advocacy group.

Opposing Nickel Mining Companies in Konawe

The Konawe region of Southeast Sulawesi province is the ancestral home of the Tolaki people. Known for its rice farms, coconut groves, and fishponds, it is also a region rich in nickel deposits. When local authorities began to issue mining permits in 2007, they promised jobs for the residents. But many companies did not adequately discuss the environmental impact, prompting the residents to later protest the harm caused by mining.

In South Konawe regency, on November 6, 2023, villagers protested in Torobulu village, Laeya district, where PT Wijaya Intan Nusantara operated an open-pit nickel mine. Villagers said that the mining, just 100 to 300 meters from their homes, was producing constant dust and heavy metal water contamination, and had ruined shrimp ponds. They said they had repeatedly asked the company, as well as government officials, for the environmental impact assessment report (Analisis Mengenai Dampak Lingkungan, or AMDAL) the company had been required to produce prior to starting operations, but their demands had gone unheeded.

At the protest, Haslilin, a 31-year-old mother of three, asked an excavator operator to stop his machine, while Andi Firmansyah, a motorcycle repairman, threw a handful of dirt. A phone video, later used in a documentary entitled "Jeruji Nikel" (Nickel Bars), captured the moment when the villagers approached the excavators. Haslilin told Human Rights Watch:

The company began to dig in 2021. It was okay then, pretty far from the residential areas, but by 2023, it had become unbearable because they were digging very close to our houses. My youngest child has lung problems. Our water is polluted. We were curious how this could have happened and wanted to see their AMDAL [environmental impact assessment]. But they ignored us. So, I stopped the excavator, climbing the wheel and demanding that the operator show me the document. He did not have it. I was protesting because my village, my environment, is destroyed.

In March 2024, the police singled out Haslilin and Andi Firmansyah, charging them under article 162 of the Mineral and Coal Mining Law, in conjunction with article 55 of the Criminal Code, for allegedly hindering mining operations. The trial took place at the Andoolo district court, about 50 kilometers from their village.

It was revealed during trial that the company had filed a police complaint against the protesters for obstruction of mining activities, naming 32 villagers. A director of PT Wijaya Intan Nusantara, a prosecution witness, said he had ordered the digging because his company had a permit since 2017 to mine a 1,934-hectare area in three villages, including Torobulu. He said that company staff had tried to meet the villagers about their complaints. He also said that the company had the AMDAL document, but that it was at the Office of Environment Affairs. A government official testified that the excavation site was included in the Torobulu mining permit.

Lawyers from the Makassar Legal Aid Institute and the WALHI chapter in Kendari, Southeast Sulawesi, represented the two accused and argued that they had legitimately exercised their right to a healthy environment. They said that the villagers had not been properly informed or consulted in the company's environmental impact assessment process, and thus their demand to see the AMDAL was a justified response to the environmental damage.

On October 1, 2024, the Andoolo district court acquitted Haslilin and Firmansyah, finding that their assertion of a right to a healthy environment was legitimate. The court noted that PT Wijaya Intan Nusantara had failed to provide information regarding the mine's environmental impact document to the Torobulu villagers, thus validating their concerns and right to question the company's operations. The prosecutors appealed the decision to the Supreme Court. On June 18, 2025, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court's ruling.

However, the acquittals did not change the situation in Torobulu. The company continued digging in residential areas, including near a primary school. "We want to protest, but we're nervous now," Firmansyah said.

In another case in the same region, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of an Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation petition asking the Ministry of Forestry and PT Gema Kreasi Perdana, a nickel mining company, to cease operations on Wawonii Island in Konawe Archipelago. In May 2025, the Forestry Ministry revoked the mining company's permit and ordered the company to remediate the area. In April 2026, the company announced that it had restored 23 hectares of the land on Wawonii Island.

Nickel Mining on Halmahera Island

Indonesia has three major nickel producing provinces: Southeast Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, and North Moluccas. In all three areas, communities are reporting air and water pollution, health problems that they tie to mining and fossil fuels, the destruction of fishing and farming livelihoods, land grabbing, unfair compensation, threats to customary Indigenous rights, violence, and a fear of retaliation for speaking out.

Christina Rumahlatu and Thomas Madilis, both from the Moluccas, joined a protest against nickel mining pollution and flooding on Halmahera Island while studying in Jakarta. They were outside the head office of PT Indonesia Weda Bay Industrial Park on August 1, 2024, when Rumahlatu confronted Suaidi Marasabessy, a retired general employed by the company, after Marasabessy said that the flooding in Halmahera had occurred due to unusually heavy rains.

The two were summoned for questioning for possible violation of the ITE Law. Rumahlatu's exchange with the general, which went viral on social media, apparently angered Ali Marasabessy, a Mollucan activist closely associated to the youth wing of Bravo 5, an organization for retired military generals. In a TikTok video, Ali Marasabessy demanded that students apologize or face "risk."Worried for their safety, Madilis left Jakarta while Rumahlatu apologized.

On Halmahera Island, North Moluccas, 11 Indigenous spice farmers from Maba Sangaji village were arrested for protesting a nickel mining company that they believed polluted the Sangaji River and destroyed their forest. "We usually just brought coffee when farming along the river, but because river is so polluted, my husband now has to carry drinking water as well," said Kamaria Malik, a homemaker in Maba Sangaji.

On April 17, 2025, dozens of villagers traveled upstream to the mining site by boat. They found excavators destroying their ancestral forest. They demanded to see the directors of the mining company PT Position, a subsidiary of the Jakarta-based Harum Energy. Since the company officials were not in the area, the villagers confiscated the keys to stop the 17 excavators until the meeting. When they returned to their village, however, the villagers found police waiting for them. The police ordered them to go to the East Halmahera police station. "We have no business with the police," said Kamaria Malik. "We did not harm anyone. We just want to know how the company could take and destroy our ancestral forest and our river."

According to the villagers, since company officials did not come to pick up the keys or hold discussions, the villagers on May 18 returned to the mining site. More than 100 police and military officers were waiting, and they began beating the villagers, including one that was reading out a statement calling on the company to pay a fine of IDR500 billion (US$30 million) to compensate for the losses. The police arrested 27 villagers and brought them to the North Moluccas police headquarters on Ternate Island.

The police released 16 of the villagers after one night in custody and charged the remaining 11 men with three offenses: unlawful possession of a bladed weapon, attempting to blackmail the company, and disrupting a mining operation. Their trial was at the Soasio district court on Tidore Island. The villagers defended themselves, saying that they were using customary Tidore law to fine the company. "We never hurt anyone. We never damaged anything. But we're beaten, we're dragged, we're detained," Nahrawi Salamudin, the husband of Kamaria Malik, told reporters outside the Soasio court. "What we did was to defend our land, our forest, our river, for the future, for our children and our children's children."

On October 16, 2025, the court found all 11 guilty and sentenced them to five months in prison, for "obstructing the nickel mining activities" and violating the mining law, saying that they should have tried a "legal mechanism" to challenge the mining operations.

Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction Law

In 2013, during Indonesian parliamentary deliberations prior to passage of the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction Law,the official National Forest Council informed lawmakers that at least 30,000 villages were located inside rainforests, and their presence would be illegal under the new law. Nonetheless, in August 2013 the bill was passed. It provides "legal certainty and deterrent effect to people involved in forest destruction." Individuals can be imprisoned for three to five years and fined up to IDR10 billion (US$6 million) for violating its provisions. For corporations, officials can face prison terms of up to 20 years and fines ranging from IDR20 billion (US$1.2 million) to IDR50 billion (US$3 million).

The Forest Destruction Law appeared to contravene a Constitutional Court ruling on customary land and forest, which had invalidated the Indonesian government's claim to millions of hectares of forest land in May 2013, potentially giving Indigenous and local communities the right to manage their customary forests. In its decision, the Constitutional Court concluded that customary forests should not be classified as "state forest areas" (kawasan hutan negara) under the terms of Indonesia's 1999 Forestry Law. AMAN, which had filed the petition, estimated that the ruling would affect 30 percent of Indonesia's forests. AMAN wanted those lands restored to the customary communities.

Environmental groups and Indigenous peoples' associations considered the Forest Destruction Law an effort to nullify the Constitutional Court ruling. In 2015, a number of nongovernmental organizations, including AMAN and WALHI, filed a petition at the Constitutional Court, asking the court to annul more than a dozen articles in the Forest Destruction Law including articles 12, 15, and 50, as well as article 81 of the 1999 Forestry Law, which are used to bring criminal cases against Indigenous people or villagers living and working near the forest, or inside the forest-but not to restrict corporations most responsible for causing deforestation.

The Constitutional Court agreed that harvesting forest products or grazing was permitted "for communities who have lived in the forest for generations, and not for commercial purposes." However, in practice, government authorities and corporate executives have frequently ignored the court orders.

Villagers on Flores Island Fight for Land Rights

In 2013, Mikael Ane, 57, an Indigenous Ngkiong farmer from Ruteng regency, Flores, was sentenced to 18 months in prison under the Forest Destruction Law for cutting trees to build a wooden house in his ancestral forest. The government had designated 38 hectares of forest in Ruteng a "nature park" in 1998, failing to take into account that several villagers, including the Anes family, grew coffee in that area. Earlier, in 2004, police had shot at villagers in the same area who were protesting the arrest of some farmers who were harvesting their coffee beans, killing six people.

Mikael Ane appealed his conviction, arguing that his family has been living in the forest for generations. After a long appeals process, the Supreme Court in May 2024 acquitted him. The ruling recognized the traditional practices of those living on ancestral land.

Indigenous People Oppose a Pulp and Paper Company in Riau, Sumatra Island

Bongku, a 58-year-old member of the Indigenous Sakai community, was sentenced to two years in prison and a fine of IDR200 million (US$12,000) in May 2020 under the Forest Destruction Law for cutting down acacia and eucalyptus trees on a concession area held by PT Arara Abadi, a pulp and paper company.

PT Arara Abadi, which received the concession from the Ministry of Forestry in 2013, is a subsidiary of the Sinas Mas business group, one of the largest conglomerates in Indonesia. It controls 296,373 hectares of land, including lands long used by the Sakai community.

Climate activists contend that PT Arara Abadi's plantation of eucalyptus and acacia trees should not be recognized as "forest" under the Forest Destruction Law. Anggi Putra Prayoga, the campaign manager of Forest Watch Indonesia, said:

Political decisions determine what constitutes a forest in many laws and regulations in Indonesia. Forests should be simply defined as tree-covered areas that are formed naturally, dominated by native trees, and not planted by humans. Natural forests are complex ecosystems consisting of various types of plants, animals, and other environmental components, which interact with each other. The government wrongly defines plantations … such as oil palm plantations, as forest.

IV. Legal Standards

Duty to Protect Human Rights and Environmental Defenders

As a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and other international treaties, Indonesia is obligated to protect the rights of human rights and environmental defenders. This obligation is further emphasized in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders (the "Declaration"). The Declaration sets out the government's obligation to "take all necessary measures to ensure the protection ... against any violence, threats, retaliation ... pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise of the rights referred to in the ... Declaration."

The UN's guidance on ensuring respect for human rights defenders under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights underscore that businesses should build and exercise their leverage to address impacts on human rights defenders and that businesses should support such activists publicly and privately.

Under article 66 of Indonesia's Law 32/2009 on Environmental Protection and Management, anyone who advocates for a right to a good and healthy environment cannot be prosecuted criminally or sued civilly for their participation. The Constitutional Court's decision No. 119/PUU-XXIII/2025 from August 2025 confirmed that article 66's protection extends to victims, witnesses, journalists, experts, and activists involved in environmental protection. Additionally, the Supreme Court Regulation (Perma No. 1/2023) on Guidelines for Adjudicating Environmental Cases provides judges with a tool for identifying Strategic Litigation Against Public Participation (SLAPP) and dismiss cases at an early stage.

Government Obligations to Regulate Businesses

Under the multiple human rights treaties that Indonesia has ratified, the state has a positive obligation to prevent and punish third party interference with the enjoyment of rights. This duty to protect includes preventing corporations from committing abuses and taking steps to hold them accountable and provide reparation to victims when they do so.

In its General Comment No. 31, the UN Human Rights Committee states the duty to protect rights holders against harms by private persons or entities. Failure to investigate these actions by private actors or entities could violate the ICCPR. Investigations should be carried out "promptly, thoroughly and effectively through independent and impartial bodies." Finally, a state's failure "to take appropriate measures or to exercise due diligence to prevent, punish, investigate or redress the harm caused by such acts by private persons or entities," could also constitute a violation of their obligations.

In its General Recommendation 23, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) notes that Indigenous peoples have lost resources to commercial companies and calls for recognition and protection of their rights to "own, develop, control and use their communal lands, territories and resources." The CERD provides authoritative interpretations of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), to which Indonesia is a state party. Where deprivation of land or resources does occur, states should "take steps to return those lands and territories." The implication is that states should regulate commercial companies to prevent abuse of rights enjoyed by Indigenous peoples and to ensure effective remedies, including reparation, where necessary.

In its General Comment No. 24, the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR) states that "[t]he obligation to protect means that States parties must prevent effectively infringements of economic, social and cultural rights in the context of business activities," and recommends that states should consider "imposing criminal or administrative sanctions and penalties," as appropriate, where business activities result in abuses of Covenant rights or where a failure to act with due diligence to mitigate risks allows such infringements to occur; enable civil suits and other effective means of claiming reparations by victims of rights violations; and allow forms of collective redress.

The Indonesian government has announced a plan to issue a new presidential regulation that will mandate human rights due diligence for companies that employ more than 2,000 people, all exporting companies and their supply chains, as well as specific high-risk industrial sectors by 2028. This new presidential regulation would replace the voluntary actions defined under Presidential Regulation No. 60/2023 and the self-assessments companies were encouraged to do by the Human Rights Ministry, in line with Indonesia's positive obligation to prevent and punish third party interference with the enjoyment of rights.

Business Responsibility to Respect Human Rights

Business enterprises have human rights responsibilities under the 2011 UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights.^[199] While the UN Guiding Principles are non-binding, they provide important guidance and apply to private organizations involved in commercial activities. The responsibility to respect human rights means that these organizations should have "policies and processes appropriate to their size and circumstances" to:

• Avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts through their own activities (both actions and omissions), and to address such impacts when they occur.
• Prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.
• "Enable the remediation of any adverse human rights impacts they cause or to which they contribute" and use their business leverage to do so.
• "Communicate externally … particularly when concerns are raised on behalf of affected populations," and "provide information that is sufficient to evaluate the adequacy of the enterprise's response."

Trade Regulations

EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products

In 2023, the European Union adopted the EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR) to take responsibility for the global deforestation toll of their consumption. The EUDR applies to cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy, and timber, as well as derived products such as beef, leather, chocolate, and palm oil.

The EUDR requires that relevant products placed on the EU market originate from land that was not deforested after December 2020. These products must also be produced in conditions that respect the domestic environment, labor, and land laws. Additionally, products should be compliant with the principle of free, prior, and informed consent as defined under the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). The EUDR faced significant pushback from member states, trading partners, and industry groups, leading the European Commission to delay its implementation by one year. Large operators must comply by December 30, 2026, while micro and small enterprises have until June 30, 2027.

Penalties for EU companies that violate the law include fines of up to 4 percent of the company's total annual EU-wide turnover; confiscation of non-compliant products; seizure of revenues derived from tainted products; and exclusion from procurement processes and access to public funding. Repeat offenders could also be temporarily banned from placing on the EU market commodities or products covered by the EUDR.

A cornerstone of the EUDR's enforcement will be country risk benchmarking, which the European Commission published in May 2025. As per the text of the regulation, the Commission should assign risk levels to countries primarily based on the incidence of deforestation and forest degradation and could also consider human rights risks like labor rights abuses and forced evictions as well as UN sanctions. The Commission may also benchmark parts of countries, enabling it to do a regional risk classification. The higher the risk assigned, the larger the number of checks that EU customs should perform on goods originating from that jurisdiction.

In the rating revealed in May 2025, Indonesia was rated standard risk despite being the country with the fourth largest area of tropical primary forest loss in 2024. The Commission stated that they considered qualitative criteria, but failed to disclose the details. They did not justify how the country, or the regions within that country that were among the top five jurisdictions most deforested in the world, were not rated high risk.

EU Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive

The Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) sets rules and processes for large EU-based businesses to address human rights and environmental abuses throughout their supply chains. EU member states are required to pass the revised directive into national law by July 2028. Companies covered by the directive must begin complying by July 2029.

The directive sets an EU-wide standard on corporate due diligence; requires companies to conduct due diligence on a wide range of human rights, labor rights, and environmental standards; obligates companies to meaningfully engage with stakeholders including Indigenous communities, farmers, and others potentially affected by a company's operations; requires companies to take a range of measures to prevent and mitigate risks and support their business partners to also adhere to human rights and environmental standards; and promises regulatory oversight.

This is particularly relevant because Indonesia and the EU concluded a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) in September 2025 that commits both parties to several provisions to protect environmental rights after "taking into account local needs and circumstances."

Indigenous Peoples' Rights over Customary Territories

The International Court of Justice has recognized the right of all people to self-determination under customary international law. The UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples found that in the context of Indigenous peoples' rights, the right to self-determination includes the right to have control and to make decisions over their lands and resources.

At the UN General Assembly in 2007, Indonesia voted in favor of the adoption of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), a non-binding declaration. UNDRIP states that Indigenous peoples have a specific right to autonomy or self-government in their internal or local affairs, and that Indigenous peoples shall not be removed from their territories without their free, prior, and informed consent.

UNDRIP urges states to obtain free and informed consent from Indigenous communities "prior to the approval of any project affecting their lands or territories and other resources." The UN Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples recommends that consultations include information on the "nature, size, pace, reversibility, and scope of any proposed project or activity" as well as any social or environmental impact assessments and the kind of compensation or benefit-sharing schemes involved.

An Indigenous Rights Bill introduced in the Indonesian parliament in 2012 remains stalled. On November 4, 2025, Forestry Minister Raja Juli Antoni pledged that Indonesia would recognize the rights of Indigenous and customary communities to 1.4 million hectares of forests by 2029 to help curb deforestation and protect Indigenous rights. Currently, only 332,500 hectares of customary forests have been formally recognized nationwide-less than 2 percent of the 33 million hectares mapped by the Registration of Indigenous Peoples, an independent initiative supported by AMAN.

Rights of Peasants

The UN Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas, adopted at the UN General Assembly in 2018, calls upon states to "respect, protect and fulfil the rights" of peasants and other people working in rural areas to "have access to and to use in a sustainable manner the natural resources present in their communities that are required to enjoy adequate living conditions." Furthermore, the declaration calls upon states to "promote the participation, directly and/or through their representative organizations, of peasants and other people working in rural areas in decision-making processes that may affect their lives, land and livelihoods."

Prohibition against Forced Evictions

The right to an adequate standard of living is enshrined in article 11 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), to which Indonesia is party. The ICESCR states that the right to an adequate standard of living includes the right to "adequate … housing."

The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR), which provides authoritative interpretations of the ICESCR, stated in its General Comment No. 4 that tenure "takes a variety of forms, including … occupation of land or property."The committee also called upon states to increase "access to land by landless or impoverished segments of the society" as "a central policy goal."

International human rights law prohibits forced evictions. The CESCR has defined forced evictions as "the permanent or temporary removal against the will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection." The UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing has characterized forced evictions as "gross violations of a range of internationally recognized human rights, including the human rights to adequate housing, food, water, health, education, work, security of the person, freedom from cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, and freedom of movement."

Governments are prohibited from conducting forced evictions themselves and are obligated to ensure through law and regulation that private parties do not carry out forced evictions. These obligations apply regardless of whether or not residents have a formal land title for the land they occupy. In the event that a person or group of people are subject to forced eviction, they are entitled to compensation.

UNDRIP also calls upon states to provide effective mechanisms for prevention of, and redress for, "any action which has the aim or effect of dispossessing [Indigenous peoples] of their lands, territories or resources." Further, it directs states to prohibit any forced removal of Indigenous peoples from their lands or territories.

Right to a Healthy Environment

Indonesia is a signatory to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and of the 2015 Paris Agreement on Climate Change. Additionally, in 2021 Indonesia signed the Glasgow Leaders' Declaration on Forests and Land Use, committing "to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation."

In August 2022, Indonesia voted in favor of the adoption of the resolution declaring access to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment a universal human right at the UN General Assembly. The resolution affirms that the promotion of this right "requires the full implementation of the multilateral environmental agreements under the principles of international environmental law."

In July 2025, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of States in respect of Climate Change, unanimously finding that climate change's impacts on human rights require "mitigation and adaptation measures, with due account given to the protection of human rights, the adoption of standards and legislation, and the regulation of the activities of private actors." ICJ advisory opinions are not legally binding, but carry immense moral and legal weight.

V. Recommendations

For the Government of Indonesia

To the Office of the President

• Publicly order law enforcement agencies to stop harassing and wrongfully prosecuting environmentalists and Indigenous peoples who are asserting their rights to customary territories against plantation and mining corporations.
• Impartially investigate and appropriately prosecute police, military and other security personnel responsible for harassment, arbitrary arrests and detention, torture and other abuses against local communities and activists.
• Support enactment of a national law recognizing the rights of Indigenous peoples to their customary land in consultation with Indigenous peoples' groups and civil society organizations working on agrarian reform.
• Direct the Geospatial Information Agency to complete and make public the national "One Map" after resolving conflicting claims from ministries, local governments, and other government offices.
• Order the Indonesian Forestry Task Force (satuan tugas penertiban kawasan hutan) to restore traditional ownership by consulting with the Registration of Indigenous Peoples, which has been mapping traditional lands, instead of just seizing land from illegal plantations and mining operations.
• Create a clear and accessible process to formally recognize Indigenous communities (masyarakat adat) and their traditional territories within the mining and energy sectors to resolve disputes. Do this in collaboration with local governments and Indigenous groups including the Registration of Indigenous Peoples.

To Members of the House of Representatives

• Support the Indigenous Rights Bill in line with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, recognizing customary land rights of Indigenous communities after consultation with Indigenous peoples' groups and civil society organizations working on agrarian reform.
• Set up an independent committee to monitor the Indonesian government's Forestry Task Force to restore land to traditional owners.

• Establish a parliamentary committee to review provisions of the 2026 Criminal Code used to improperly prosecute environmentalists and Indigenous people, as well as other laws cited above, including the Plantation Law, the Mineral and Coal Mining Law, the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction Law, to ensure that they meet international human rights standards.

To the National Police and the Attorney General's Office

• Ensure police and public prosecutors impartially intervene in disputes involving companies accused of harassing and intimidating environmentalists, Indigenous people, and rural communities seeking to defend their ancestral land.
• Ensure that police and public prosecutors do not arbitrarily arrest and detain activists or wrongfully charge them under the Criminal Code, the Information and Electronic Transaction Law, or other national regulations including the Plantation Law, the Mineral and Coal Mining Law, and the Prevention and Eradication of Forest Destruction Law.
• Ensure independent and impartial investigations of police officers, regardless of ranks, implicated in abuses related to land grabbing, and appropriately prosecute those responsible.

To the Ministry of Defense

• Ensure that the Forest Area Enforcement led by the defense minister examines disputes in oil palm plantations handed over to PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara, a state-owned company, returns land unlawfully taken from Indigenous peoples, and revokes wrongfully brought criminal cases against environmentalists and Indigenous leaders.

• Organize relevant training and education programs for military officers on land rights, Indigenous peoples' rights, and land-rights development since the 1960 Basic Agrarian Law.

To the Ministry of Forestry

• Seek to amend the 1999 Forestry Law based on the 2012 Constitutional Court decision that Indigenous peoples' land cannot automatically be deemed state-owned. Involve Indigenous peoples' groups in the amendment process. Remove the requirement for customary rights recognition under local regulations and seek to replace it with a simpler national mechanism that can expedite titling.
• Accelerate the pledged recognition of 1.4 million hectares of customary forests, including by recognizing customary forests that do not currently overlap with any corporate concessions to protect them from future encroachment.
• Evaluate licenses granted to mining and plantation companies, including those under the special National Strategic Projects.

For the European Union

• Ensure timely and robust implementation of the EU Regulation on Deforestation-Free Products (EUDR), effective from December 30, 2026, in which Indonesian companies must provide detailed information for exports to the EU, including geolocation data, to prove products such as palm oil, cocoa, coffee, rubber, soy, and timber are deforestation-free.
• Appropriately designate provinces in Kalimantan and West Papua as high-risk areas under the EUDR risk benchmarking system until Indonesia undertakes meaningful reform to preserve naturally regenerating forests, which are separate and distinct from tree plantations, and incorporates UNDRIP into enforceable domestic law.
• Urge the Indonesian government to address corruption in the implementation of its national timber traceability mechanism (Sistem Verifikasi Legalitas Kayu), limit and reverse deforestation, uphold Indigenous peoples' rights during all bilateral trade and human rights and environment-related talks, including at the highest levels, and offer financial support and other assistance.
• Offer financial and technical support directly to Indigenous groups to conserve and protect their ancestral territories.

For the United Nations Development Program

• Monitor legal cases against environmentalists and Indigenous people who face harassment, prosecution, and imprisonment for voicing their concerns against deforestation or land grabbing.
• Assist the Indonesian government in fully implementing its constitutional recognition of Indigenous communities by accelerating the process of legally recognizing and certifying their customary land, which provides communities with legal standing against land grabbing.
• Urge the Indonesian government to ensure that regulations on large-scale development projects affecting Indigenous communities fully implement and enforce the Free, Prior, and Informed Consent protocols.

For Domestic and International Companies

• Meet your responsibilities under the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights to respect the rights of Indigenous peoples and communities and environmentalists who are exercising their basic rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
• Strengthen due diligence standards, including environmental, social, and governance standards, when using water resources and lands. Abide by Free, Prior, and Informed Consent protocols when dealing with Indigenous communities and other traditional landowners.
• Fairly address complaints from local communities, provide full restoration and fair compensation for land, and minimize environmental harm through better pollution control and waste management especially among mining corporations.
• Ensure transparent communication and support the rights of Indigenous peoples to manage their own resources.

Acknowledgments

The report was written by Andreas Harsono and Luciana Téllez Chávez, senior researchers at Human Rights Watch. It was edited by Meenakshi Ganguly, deputy Asia director. James Ross, legal and policy director, and Joseph Saunders, deputy program director, provided legal and programmatic review, respectively.

Specialist review was provided by Jim Wormington, associate director of the economic justice and rights division. Audrey Gregg, senior coordinator in the Asia division, provided editorial and production assistance. This report was prepared for publication by Travis Carr, publications manager.

Special thanks to our external reviewers Sapariah Saturi of Mongabay Indonesia in Jakarta, Herlambang P. Wiratraman of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta, and Nawawi Bahrudin of Law Office Nawawi Bahrudin & Partners in Jakarta. We thank all those individuals and organizations who aided in our research and who generously shared their time, energy, and experiences with Human Rights Watch.

Human Rights Watch would like to particularly express appreciation to Indigenous activists, from Sumatra, Java, Kalimantan, Sulawesi, the Moluccas, and the Papuan provinces, who have risked arrest and torture to campaign against deforestation.