September 30, 2025 | 10:13 am
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - President Prabowo’s pledge to form a fact-finding team to investigate the August-September 2025 riots fizzled out. The probe hit a brick wall.
PRESIDENT Prabowo Subianto’s promise to establish a fact-finding team to investigate the demonstrations in a number of regions has faded away to nothing. This cancellation will make it more difficult to investigate the involvement of those responsible for the mass violence at the end of August 2025.
Prabowo promised to establish a team after he met with a number of public figures at the State Palace on September 11, 2025. One of the proposals from these individuals was the establishment of an independent team to reveal who were behind the violence. Prabowo welcomed this request and promised to establish a fact-finding team to investigate the violence that left 11 people dead and more than 500 injured.
Six days later, this promise was refuted when a presidential aide, Coordinating Minister for Legal, Human Rights, Immigration and Correctional Affairs Yusril Ihza Mahendra, announced that Prabowo was cancelling the establishment of the fact-finding team. State Secretary Minister Prasetyo Hadi claimed that Prabowo had never promised to establish a fact-finding team. Because of this lack of clarity from the government, the likelihood of identifying the causes of the violence has diminished.
The government then handed over the investigation to other institutions, namely the National Commission on Human Rights, the National Commission on Violence Against Women, the Indonesian Child Protection Commission, the National Disability Commission, the Indonesian Ombudsman, and the Witness and Victim Protection Agency. The reason given was that these six institutions have a much firmer standing and are more independent in fact finding.
At first glance, this reasoning seems logical, but in fact it makes no sense. The violence is believed to have involved security officers. A number of personnel from the Strategic Intelligence Agency (Bais) and Indonesian Military (TNI) personnel were detained in the middle of the violence—although subsequently it was claimed that they were carrying out their duties at the locations of the violence.
And the conduct of the police has come under the spotlight. They used violence to keep protestors back, resulting in injuries and deaths. An online motorbike taxi driver named Affan Kurniawan died after being run over by a Police Mobile Brigade tactical vehicle on August 28, 2025.
It is not easy to investigate the role of security force officers, because these six bodies only have limited authority. The National Commission on Human Rights and the Witness and Victim Protection Agency, for example, have the authority to investigate possible crimes, but they are not investigators with the power to compel people to be questioned.
Bais, the TNI and the National Police have their own chains of command. Questioning of personnel in these three institutions will not be easy. They only obey orders from their respective commanding officers. Meanwhile, in this case, they are the individuals who should be questioned first.
And the questioning of civilians still in police detention accused of involvement in the violence will also be difficult because it will involve a complex legal process. On the other hand, these people are hoping they will be freed immediately because they are only police scapegoats for the violence.
This is why an independent fact-finding team needs the authority to break through all chains of command and bureaucracy. But the President has no desire to uncover the roots of the violence sparked by public disappointment and anger over the uncertain economic and political situation.
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