An Indonesian court acquits four activists accused of inciting deadly 2025 student protests, a ruling hailed as a victory for civil liberties.
JAKARTA: An Indonesian court on Friday acquitted four activists accused of inciting the country’s worst riots in over two decades.
The ruling was described by rights groups as a significant victory for civil liberties in the Southeast Asian nation.
The defendants included Delpedro Marhaen, an activist with the Lokataru Foundation, a non-governmental organisation providing legal aid to protesters. Marhaen was widely seen as the face of the demonstrations following his arrest last September.
Three other people, including a colleague of Marhaen and two other activists, were also cleared of all charges.
The Central Jakarta court found the defendants not guilty of inciting people to join the August 2025 protests. They were also acquitted of charges related to triggering riots by spreading fake news and hate speech on social media.
The judge further ruled they had not incited minors to join the protests, absolving them of child exploitation allegations.
“The ruling not only belongs to us but also belongs to all political prisoners,” said Delpedro after the trial. He added, “Imagine we have been arrested for six months but now we are proven not guilty.”
The protests began as nationwide demonstrations against government spending priorities, including a decision to increase financial incentives for lawmakers. They escalated into violent riots after police killed a motorcycle taxi driver in Jakarta.
The unrest, which lasted into September, resulted in 10 deaths. It was President Prabowo Subianto’s first major test since his landslide election victory in 2024.
Analysts have described the 2025 protests as the worst since 1998, when student-led demonstrations toppled former President Suharto. A recent report noted nearly 7,000 people have been arrested in connection with the 2025 protests as of February 2026.
The Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence called the acquittal an “oasis in the rollback of Indonesia’s democracy”. The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation described the verdicts as a small victory but urged the government to protect freedom of expression.
