Indonesia has been appointed President of the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. On the surface, this moment may be seen as a diplomatic achievement and a reflection of global confidence, particularly from the Asia-Pacific region, which delivered 34 out of 47 votes from the Asia-Pacific Group (APG). Yet, at the same time, this position intensifies scrutiny of Indonesia's selective silence on a wide range of human rights issues, both domestically and in humanitarian crises at the regional and global levels.
Indonesia's non-compliance to international human rights mechanisms
Indonesia has been resisting UN Human Rights Mechanisms by not complying to Universal Periodic Review (UPR) and treaty bodies recommendations, Special Procedures Communications, and other types of communications such as press releases from OHCHR and indirect statements. A State serving as President of the UN Human Rights Council is expected not only to meet its human rights obligations, but also to model best practice by engaging constructively with UN mechanisms and civil society.
Indonesia still has outstanding commitments related to the 2022 recommendations even though the next cycle will be in 2027. Indonesia received around 269 recommendations and accepted around 205 recommendations. For example, Indonesia accepted recommendations regarding "Strengthening protection for human rights defenders (HRDs), journalists, and civil society". If we move back to the mass protest that was happening in August-September 2025, Indonesia in fact, has been harassing and arresting HRDs in a lot of different cities in different provinces. Up until now, those who were arrested have not been able to reconnect back to their families. In December 2025 alone, there were several journalists and social media influencers harassed by the government with different forms of terrors for speaking about the Sumatera landslide and flood disaster. Some of them mentioned the terrors including their house being bombed by molotov, car being wrecked, and animal carcasses being sent to their home by 'unknown people'. There were also attempts to hack their accounts.
Indonesia also accepted recommendations to "Reform and improve national laws that discriminate or limit rights". In reality, in 2025, Indonesia passed yet another two controversial national laws, which are the TNI Law (military law) and the new Procedural Code (KUHAP). Both regulations give broader authority for both the military (TNI) and police (Polri). Many existing problematic laws also remain the same. Other than that, Indonesia accepted recommendations to "Protect Freedom of Expression and Assembly". Yet, laws like the Electronic Information and Transactions (ITE) Law continue to be used to criminalise speech and peaceful dissent, which suggests implementation is lagging behind the commitment.
In 2025, Indonesia received 11 communications from UN Special Procedures, an increase from six in 2024. Despite being required to respond to all Special Procedures communications, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) replied to only five of the 11. The most recent communication from UN Special Procedures to Indonesia concerned the revision of the Criminal Procedure Code (KUHAP) and was sent on 18 November 2025, the same day the bill was passed. The Special Procedures raised concerns over several problematic provisions, including those related to arrest and detention, investigation processes, the role of advocates and legal aid, and undue delays in proceedings. To date, the Government of Indonesia (GoI) has not responded.
On 23 April 2025, Indonesia received a communication from UN Special Procedures addressing allegations of police violence against peaceful protests organised by students and civil society across Indonesia in response to the ratification of the revised Indonesian National Armed Forces Law (TNI Law), which expands the military's domestic role. The Special Procedures expressed concern over the law's new provisions and documented patterns of repression by police and military forces in their response to mass protests nationwide. The GoI then replied to the communication letter on June 16, 2025, by declining all the accusation by dissenting the repressions of human rights defenders, protesters, and journalists.
Indonesia received additional communications related to the rights and sovereignty of Indigenous Peoples. On 4 November 2025, UN Special Procedures raised concerns about Indonesia's lack of recognition of Indigenous Peoples and the systemic human rights violations they experience. The experts called on Indonesia to recognise Indigenous Peoples and to end policies that threaten their existence, highlighting forced assimilation in West Papua and the human rights impacts of National Strategic Projects (PSN) on Indigenous territories. The Government of Indonesia has not responded.
The government's responses to UN communications demonstrate a troubling gap between Indonesia's international commitments and domestic practice. The refusal to acknowledge violations, the instrumental use of sovereignty narratives to deflect international scrutiny, and the failure to provide timely, good-faith replies undermine the very mechanisms the Council is mandated to protect and strengthen.
Indonesia has left the concept of 'foreign policy begins at home' astray
Beyond mere prestige, the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council carries substantive mandates, including facilitating open human rights dialogue, ensuring meaningful civil society participation, and promoting the protection of human rights defenders. In this context, a fundamental question arises:
'Has Indonesia demonstrated practices consistent with these mandates within its own borders?'
Rather than facilitating dialogue, the way public demands are addressed in Indonesia has instead tended to delegitimize critical voices, resulting in the erosion of civic space. A series of protests throughout 2025 from the 'Indonesia Gelap' demonstrations in February, the March 2025 protests against the revision of the Military Law, the May Day mobilizations in May, to the unrest during the 25-31 August 2025 protests, were met with repressive actions by security forces.
Injuries, casualties, and the criminalization of protesters have continued to occur, yet none of the public demands have been addressed. Moreover, the government's official statement "Indonesia Gelap (Dark), you are the ones in the dark" illustrates a defensive posture toward criticism rather than a willingness to listen and engage in dialogue.
This situation raises serious doubts about Indonesia's eligibility to hold the presidency of the UN Human Rights Council. A forum that normatively places dialogue and participation at the core of its work is, paradoxically, being led by a state that routinely disregards public aspirations and criminalizes expression and protest within its own civic space.
Furthermore, with regard to the state's function in protecting human rights defenders, it has instead exhibited a pattern of criminalizing civil society advocacy. The rejection of the proposal to grant Soeharto the title of national hero, for instance, was met not with open dialogue but with exclusion and stigmatization.
A similar pattern is evident in the practice of red-tagging against youth, activists, and civil society groups who have long voiced social, economic, and democratic concerns. Another persistent issue is the state's slow response in addressing acts of terror targeting human rights defenders, such as the delivery of a pig's head and dead rats to Tempo journalists, and the molotov cocktail attack on the Jubi news office. This lack of accountability has enabled the recurrence of similar attacks toward the end of 2025, including the incident targeting Iqbal Damanik, a Greenpeace Indonesia activist.
The Indonesian government has also frequently concealed the worsening human rights situation in Papua. Instead of ensuring the fulfillment of basic services, the State has chosen to employ security-based approaches by deploying military forces without clear legal authorization. This has led to an escalation of conflict which, in many cases, results in violence and human rights violations, causing both material and immaterial harm to Indigenous Papuans. These impacts include land dispossession, the illegal occupation of public facilities such as schools and health centers as military posts, and repressive actions against Indigenous communities. Such conduct further underscores Indonesia's selective silence in confronting serious violations within its own territory, while simultaneously weakening its claim to be a credible actor in leading the global human rights agenda.
This tendency toward selective silence does not stand alone, it is intertwined with Indonesia's increasingly regressive human rights diplomacy on the issue of Palestine. On one hand, Indonesia continues to present itself as a steadfast supporter of the Palestinian struggle across international forums. Yet on the other hand, its practices of solidarity reveal sharp contradictions between political statements, international legal commitments, and economic activities that ultimately benefit the Israeli occupying authority.
This contradiction became particularly evident following the statement of Indonesia's Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Anis Matta, during the Extraordinary Session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) in Riyadh in November 2024. In that forum, Indonesia explicitly called on OIC member states to sever economic and trade relations with Israel as a concrete measure to halt the aggression and support the Palestinian people. However, this call was never translated into actual policy at the national level.
At a time when the Indonesian government should have halted economic relations, trade flows with Israel continued uninterrupted. Data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) show that between January and May 2025, Indonesia recorded imports from Israel amounting to USD 13,187,366 and exports totaling USD 83,634,839. These transactions resulted in a trade surplus of USD 70,447,473 for Indonesia, equivalent to approximately IDR 1,377,432,006,840.75. This reality strongly demonstrates that national economic gains were prioritized, even when such relations directly benefited a state currently maintaining an occupation and apartheid system against the Palestinian people.
Indonesia's regressing human rights diplomacy on the issue of Palestine is further reflected in political signals that blur the principle of non-recognition toward Israel. Beginning in May 2025, President Prabowo Subianto publicly stated that Indonesia might recognize Israel should the entity first recognize the State of Palestine. Such a statement stands in clear contradiction to the principle of non-recognition under international law, particularly after the International Court of Justice affirmed in July 2024 that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal. As a result, this discourse of "conditional recognition" opens the door to normalization and impunity for Israel's crimes against humanity, while simultaneously eroding Indonesia's longstanding position as a consistent supporter of the Palestinian struggle.
These practices cannot be separated from the obligations under international law reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its July 2024 advisory opinion, which stated that Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967 is illegal and underscored the duty of third states not to recognize, aid, or assist in maintaining such an unlawful situation. Within this legal framework, trade relations that generate economic benefit for Israel cannot be regarded as neutral; rather, they risk constituting complicity or indirect involvement in violations of international law.
Concerns over the direction of Indonesia's foreign policy further intensified with its support for UN Security Council Resolution 2803, which risks normalizing a new form of foreign occupation over Gaza and disregarding the Palestinian people's right to self-determination. The resolution reiterates that third states, including Indonesia, have an international legal obligation not to assist or contribute to the maintenance of Israel's illegal occupation.
In this context, Indonesia's leadership of the UN Human Rights Council can no longer be questioned merely on moral grounds, but also on normative and legal ones. When a state calls for economic sanctions in multilateral forums while simultaneously maintaining trade relations that benefit an illegal occupying power, its human rights diplomacy inevitably loses credibility. The presidency of the Human Rights Council demands consistency between principles, practice, and a clear commitment to victims, something that Indonesia has yet to demonstrate in its policies toward Palestine.
The irony deepens when the government, through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on 23 December 2025 as well as in its inauguration on 8 January 2026 in Geneva, emphasized Indonesia's role as a "bridge builder" and an "objective and balanced" actor. In the human rights context, however, such pseudo-neutrality and excessive caution often result in the abdication of moral responsibility. The UN Human Rights Council was not established merely to maintain political equilibrium among states, but to ensure that human rights violations, wherever they occur, are met with courage, clarity, and a commitment to those affected.
Indonesia's 2026 presidency of the Human Rights Council, which coincides with the body's 20th anniversary, should serve as a turning point. Indonesia has an opportunity to prove that human rights leadership is not simply a matter of diplomatic prestige, but of value consistency, principled advocacy, and genuine political will to place human rights above narrow state interests. Without critical reflection and concrete action, the presidency risks becoming an empty symbol that offers no meaningful contribution to democratic life at home.
- The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS)
- The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI)