Acquittal for Delpedro Cs: From the Dock to a Prostration of Gratitude in the Courtroom

JAKARTA, KOMPAS.com - The defendants in the case of alleged incitement of demonstrations in August 2025, Delpedro Marhaen Rismansyah and his three colleagues, were acquitted. The panel of judges of the Central Jakarta District Court said that Delpedro Marhaen Rismansyah, Muzaffar Salim, Syahdan Husein, and Khariq Anhar were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have incited the riot that accompanied the August 2025 protest. ‘Saying that defendant I Delpedro Marhaen Rismansyah, defendant II Muzaffar Salim, defendant III Syahdan Husein, and defendant IV Khariq Anhar were not proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed the offences as charged in the first, second, third and fourth indictments,’ said the presiding judge Harika Nova Yeri during the verdict hearing at the Central Jakarta District Court, Kemayoran, on Friday 6 March 2026. The court therefore acquitted the defendants of all charges brought by the Prosecution. The panel chair also ordered that the four defendants be released from detention once the verdict was pronounced, and urged that the defendants’ rights to their person, status, and dignity be restored. The acquittal came after the State Prosecutor of the Central Jakarta District Court previously pressed Delpedro Cs with a two-year prison term in a hearing held on 27 February 2026. At that time the prosecutor also sought that the four defendants be remanded in custody in a detention centre. The prosecutor stated that Delpedro Cs had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt to have committed a public order offence by speaking or writing to incite others to commit crimes or to oppose the authorities with violence. The four activists were charged under Article 246 in conjunction with Article 20C of Law No. 1 of 2023 concerning the Indonesian Criminal Code (KUHP). One of the main considerations was the lack of evidence showing that the defendants’ posts on social media contained manipulated facts or calls to riot. The panel found that the prosecutor could not present evidence that Delpedro and the three colleagues manipulated, fabricated, or engineered facts in flyers posted on Instagram. One post highlighted in the proceedings concerned the death of online motorcycle taxi driver Affan Kurniawan. ‘Considering that the posting on 28 August 2025, precisely in the evening, was a form of angry response and humanitarian solidarity as human rights activists following the incident involving Affan Kurniawan,’ the panel said in the verdict. The judges regarded the post as a symbolic expression related to freedom of expression in response to Affan Kurniawan’s death. The second consideration was that there were no witnesses convincingly showing that the masses rioted as a direct result of the defendants’ posts on social media. The judges also noted that there was no clear evidence indicating calls for violence or destruction in those posts. In the proceedings, only one witness testified that they were moved to join the solidarity action after learning of Affan Kurniawan’s death.