Indonesia: Acid attack on human rights defender must be tried at civilian court to prevent impunity

Responding to the Indonesian military’s move to try four members of the Military’s Strategic Intelligence Agency (BAIS) for their roles in an acid attack against human rights activist Andrie Yunus in a military court in Jakarta, Amnesty International Indonesia’s Executive Director Usman Hamid said:

“The indictment hearing appears to limit the perpetrators to only four suspects, despite separate investigations recently conducted by the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) and civil society coalition Advocacy for Democracy Team (TAUD) that both found at least 14 perpetrators involved.

“The military further said that the four defendants acted without orders from their superiors but based on personal revenge against Andrie for actively criticizing the military. Such characterizations reduce state‑linked violence to a private grievance – a common tactic of impunity designed to protect institutional integrity and shield the full chains of command and other actors potentially linked to this incident from scrutiny.

“Under international law, military courts should not have jurisdiction to try members of the military and security forces for human rights violations.”