Indonesia In Revolt
Words by Mawa Kresna
Photographs by Adrian Mulya
Courtesy of Project Multatuli
Tear gas clung to Jakarta’s air as riot police fired repeated rounds into thousands of stone- and bottle-hurling protesters outraged by lawmakers’ US$3,000 housing allowances, worth up to twenty times the minimum wage. It was late August 2025. Indonesia was in revolt. The allowance was a catalyst, not a cause. Nearly three decades after Reformasi (the mass protest movement in 1998 that ended Suharto’s three-decade dictatorship), the outrage was less about one benefit than what it symbolised: a political class insulated from the cost-of-living pressures facing ordinary Indonesians.
In the year preceding the protests, parliament amended the Military Law to permit officers to hold civilian posts, while constitutional rulings cleared the way for Gibran Rakabuming Raka, the son of former president Joko Widodo, to run as vice president. At the same time, unemployment climbed. An estimated 280,000 workers were laid off.
As police responded with mass detentions and force, the unrest spread beyond Jakarta. Economic frustration hardened into a wider confrontation over accountability, inequality and the right to dissent. What began as a large demonstration in Jakarta on 25 August quickly spread across the archipelago. Within a week, clashes were reported in multiple regions.
By late September, police had named 959 people as suspects in connection with the protests, including 295 minors.
Jakarta bore the brunt of the crackdown. In the first five days alone, police detained more than 1,240 people. Independent monitors recorded around 700 injuries and estimated damage at approximately US$3.6 million.
The unrest shifted after 21-year-old delivery driver Affan Kurniawan was killed when a police armoured vehicle rolled over him during a dispersal operation in Jakarta. His death did not ignite the protests, but it deepened them, drawing larger crowds and sharpening public anger. By mid-October, demonstrations had been recorded in at least twenty-two provinces. More than one hundred universities issued statements, organised walkouts or held campus assemblies in support. Legal aid foundations established
over forty emergency posts to help families locate detained students, while press-freedom groups documented dozens of cases in which journalists had their equipment seized or damaged during police operations.
Police deployed more than 6,000 officers across Jakarta in an attempt to contain the movement. But the breadth of participation — students, workers, neighbourhood groups and civil society organisations — suggested it had grown far beyond the housing allowance that first ignited it.
At least 10 civilians were killed during the unrest, and more than 3,000 people were arrested nationwide.
Nearly three decades after the fall of Suharto, the promise of democratic reform remains incomplete. The right to protest continues to collide with intimidation, detention and force. August 2025 was not an isolated rupture, but part of a deeper contest over power and accountability in modern Indonesia.
