Jakarta, February 15, 2025.
“Whoever the leader is, repression will keep repeating itself”. Such pessimism is illustrated by the continuing baton of digital rights violations in Indonesia. Although the General Election, which is the center of the cosmos of the 2024 political year, results in a change of regime, it seems that the relay of repression and violations of digital rights will continue.
Indonesia Digital Rights Situation Report 2024 launched at Taman Ismail Marzuki, Jakarta, February 15, 2025. Southeast Asia Freedom of Expression Network (SAFEnet) pinned the title “Passing The Baton of Digital Repression”. This title represents the condition of digital rights in the midst of the euphoria of the General Election, which is predicted as an event of (digital) democracy that can bring change.
In 2024, Indonesia undergoes an important political transition, namely the change of legislative and executive members. The change of legislative and executive members occurs through two general elections. First, the election of members of the the House of Representatives and the president and vice president in February 2024. Second, simultaneous regional elections in November 2024. As illustrated in the Indonesia Digital Rights Situation Report 2023, SAFEnet found that the elections had exacerbated digital rights violations during the year leading up to the elections.
Digital rights violations continued to occur throughout the 2024 elections and the political situation that accompanied them. One of the key moments occurred in August 2024 when Indonesian civil society, especially students, academics, and civil society organization activists, protested against the House of Representatives’ plan to overturn the Constitutional Court’s (MK) ruling on the age limit and the lowering of the regional election nomination threshold.
The movement with the hashtag #PeringatanDarurat did not only occur in digital spaces, but also massively in the form of street actions. Spread in various cities in Indonesia. In response to these actions, the police repressed and arrested activists participating in the action. Cell phones as important devices were also confiscated. In digital spaces, intimidation and threats against activists also occurred as well as information distortion operations.
Digital repression throughout 2024 continued after the change of president and vice president from Joko Widodo and Ma’ruf Amin to Prabowo Subianto and Joko Widodo’s eldest son, Gibran Rakabuming Raka. This situation is why the Indonesia Digital Rights Situation Report 2024 takes the theme of the relay of repression on the internet. The transition of leadership is also the continuation of injustice in the digital realm.
There are four issues, namely internet access, freedom of expression, digital security, and equality and inclusion in the form of monitoring Online Gender-Based Violence (GBV) raised in the report.
For more details about this report, read or download it at this link.
