TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsCalls mount for public trial in activist acid attack
An internal military justice investigation of the alleged perpetrators clouds transparency and risks perpetuating impunity, civil society groups have said.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Advocacy for Democracy Team (TAUD) members hold posters after a press conference in Jakarta on March 16, 2026. in solidarity with Andrie Yunus, an activist and deputy coordinator with rights group Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS), who suffered burns to 24 percent of his face and arms from acid thrown by two unidentified assailants on a motorcycle on March 12. (Reuters/Willy Kurniawan)
C
alls are mounting for a public and transparent criminal prosecution of the soldiers suspected in last week’s acid attack on human rights advocate Andrie Yunus, with civil society coalitions slamming the Indonesian Military’s (TNI) plan to handle the case through its internal justice system as “reactive” and potentially perpetuating impunity.
In a statement on Wednesday, 19 civil society groups, including the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (Kontras), Amnesty International Indonesia and Imparsial, said a case handled internally by the TNI would “diminish the severity and systemic nature” of the attack, as well as risk shielding senior figures from accountability.
“It is already an open secret that the military justice system suffers from impunity issues and often serves as a space to obscure accountability for ordinary crimes involving TNI personnel,” the statement said.
“The coalition believes that the systematic elements and command responsibility behind the attack on Andrie Yunus are unlikely to be revealed through an internal process. On the contrary, such a case would likely be confined to low-level perpetrators,” it continued.
The statement also called for a thorough investigation extending beyond the immediate perpetrators, to include “higher-ranking figures potentially acting as intellectual masterminds”. Citing early indications, the coalition stressed that the TNI commander, the defense minister and TNI Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) chief must not evade scrutiny in uncovering the attack.
Read also: Activists defiant following acid attack on rights defender
Public outrage has yet to subside a week after the attack on Andrie, a Kontras activist, who was riding his motorcycle in Central Jakarta last Thursday when two unidentified men on another bike hurled acid at him.
