By 
Hanif Ardiningrum Khansa
Joris Beugels via Unsplash, 21 April, 2025.
Indonesia’s courts just slashed the legal gag order silencing critics–no more jail time for calling out corruption or pollution. The decision has become a landmark ruling declaring truth is not a crime.
In the Decision No. 105/PUU-XXII/2024, Indonesia’s Constitutional Court has barred government agencies and private companies from filing criminal defamation complaints under the Law No. 1 of 2024 on the Second Amendment of the Electronic Information and Transaction (ITE Law), declaring the practice a threat to free speech and democratic accountability. This landmark ruling emphasises that the defamation clauses only cover the offence against an individual or a group of individuals and not governments, institutions, and even private companies.
The verdict marks a dramatic shift in Indonesia’s legal landscape, where defamation laws have long been weaponised to silence dissent. Between 2019 and 2024, an amount of 530 defamation complaints were filed by officials and corporations (Amnesty International Indonesia, 2025). Among the most egregious cases was the indictment of 7 months’ imprisonment for the environmental activist and the constitutional petitioner, Daniel Frits Maurits Tangkilisan. The conviction for defamation was decided because of his proactive complaints to the Ministry of Environment and Forestry regarding the illegal farming ponds and polluted waters in Karimunjawa, Central Java (BBC, 2025).
This ruling does not merely correct a legal oversight–it strikes at the heart of Indonesia’s systemic censorship apparatus, where defamation laws have functioned as corporate and governmental shields against accountability. Daniel’s case epitomises this abuse: when a citizen’s factual complaint about environmental destruction becomes a jailable offense, the law is not protecting reputations, it is enforcing silence. By narrowing defamation to individual harm, the Court has effectively dismantled a tool long used to criminalise journalism, activism, and even bureaucratic whistleblowing.
The victory remains fragile. Without efficient enforcement and public oversight, powerful actors could simply pivot to civil lawsuits or retaliate through non-legal means. The verdict’s true test will be whether it shifts the culture of impunity or merely redirects it. Nevertheless, the decision may have broader implications that are already reverberating across Southeast Asia, where similar laws are frequently abused. For Indonesian civil society, the verdict offers a rare victory in a region where press freedoms are eroding. The victory could be a mark that the law finally listened to the people instead of the powerful.
Sources and Further Readings:
BBC News Indonesia. (2025, May 2). Kasus kekerasan terhadap jurnalis meningkat di Indonesia
Reuters. (2025, April 29). Indonesian court bans government, company defamation complaints.
VOI. (2025, April 29). MK batalkan pasal pencemaran nama baik untuk pemerintah dan korporasi
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