A demonstrator holds a portrait of Affan Kurniawan, an ojol (online motorcycle transportation) driver who was run over by a police Mobile Brigade (Brimob) armored vehicle, during a protest on Aug. 30, 2025, in front of the East Java Police headquarters in Surabaya, East Java. - AFP
JAKARTA: With police brutality rising over the past year, 2025 marked a moment when the government launched an effort to reform the force, though skepticism remains over whether the move can bring meaningful change to the institution.
Police brutality has been in the spotlight throughout the year as more people took to the streets to protest decisions made by President Prabowo Subianto and his administration.
In March, for example, when people rallied to oppose the revision of the 2004 Indonesian Military (TNI) Law that is feared to pave a way for growing militarism, protesters and journalists in several cities were beaten and arrested by police officers.
Another protest in late August against lawmakers’ lavish allowances and economic inequality was also marred by various incidents of police brutality. Among those highlighted was the widely-documented killing of Affan Kurniawan, a 21-year-old ojol (online motorcycle transportation) driver, who was struck by a police armored vehicle during a protest in Jakarta on Aug. 28.
Protests against economic difficulties quickly escalated into a broader outcry and unrest against policy brutality, and led to riots in several cities for two weeks.
Ironically, police responded to growing public anger with force. An investigation by human rights group Amnesty International found multiple cases of violence allegedly committed by police officers, resulting in at least 1,036 victims across 19 cities and 4,194 arbitrary arrests.
“The police are meant to provide service, serve and protect,” Amnesty International Indonesia executive director Usman Hamid said in a discussion on Dec. 9. “[The force should] not merely secure situations, but it should serve people who wish to stage protests and to protect them during the rallies.”
While most cases are often blamed on undisciplined individual officers, the “serious problem” was more rooted in the institution, Usman went on to say.
He attributed the police brutality to weak oversight by executive, legislative and judicial institutions. Usman also suggested that the National Police Commission (Kompolnas), the police’s external oversight body, should also be made independent of the police institution itself.
The police’s violent treatment of protesters may also reflect a repressive nature of the government, according to Usman: “If the police repeatedly use unnecessary and excessive force, it indicates a policy decision by the state.”
Repeated cases of police brutality and other problems, including unprofessional law enforcement and officers committing crimes themselves, have been exacerbated by long-standing impunity, with those involved often avoiding trial and facing only sanctions from the force’s ethics committee, according to an October report by the Alliance of Independent Journalists (AJI).
Such issues had also caused the police to be among institutions facing a public trust crisis, with an October survey among journalists and the public by Jakarta-based think tank Centre of Economic and Law Studies (CELIOS) rated the police’s performance as “very poor”.
Meaningful reform?
Calls for a thorough police reform have been respondedto by Prabowo’s administration with the establishment of a committee in November to expedite the work to improve the force.
But people were quick to lament the committee’s lineup for consisting “pro-government figures” and lacking public representation. Led by former Constitutional Court chief justice Jimly Asshiddiqie, who supported Prabowo during the 2024 election, the lineup consists of several cabinet ministers as well as former National Police chiefs.
Also included in the committee is incumbent National Police chief Gen. Listyo Sigit Prabowo, who has been facing pressure to resign from his post since the nationwide unrest in August.
“Public expectations for the police reform committee remain low, considering that skepticism has emerged since the beginning, after the lineup was revealed to be dominated by [former and active] police officers,” police affair analyst Bambang Rukminto of the Institute for Security and Strategic Studies (ISESS) said on Dec. 22.
Doubt on the ongoing police reform intensified recently when Listyo signed a new internal decree that allows active officers to hold positions in government ministries and state bodies. The policy was issued just weeks after the Constitutional Court overturned an ambiguous provision in the 2002 National Police Law and asserted that an active police officer should resign or retire from active service before holding civilian offices.
Activists called the National Police defying the court ruling for issuing the decree. House of Representatives lawmakers are preparing to deliberate a revision to the National Police Law, which will include provisions on placement of officers in civilian institutions, oversight mechanisms and police chief nomination methods.
House Commission III member Muhammad Nasir Djamil of the Prosperous Justice Party (PKS) stressed the importance of ensuring that the police remain a noncombatant force tasked with protecting citizens and committed to democratic policing that respects human rights and civil and democratic values.
“If we are persistent with that principle,” he said in the Dec. 9 discussion, “we can save the police institution from the current public distrust.” - The Jakarta Post/ANN
