Amnesty Rejects Plan to Establish Human Rights Activists Advisory Team

Amnesty International Indonesia is urging the government to cancel the plan to establish an advisory team for determining the status of human rights or HAM activists. Amnesty International Indonesia’s Deputy Director Wirya Adiwena views the plan as a dangerous backward step that harms the basic principles of human rights.

For Wirya, the state does not have moral or legal legitimacy to determine who may or may not be called a human rights activist. “When the government unilaterally takes over this authority, what happens is not protection but control and monopolisation of civil space,” said Wirya in a written statement on Thursday, 30 April 2026.

The Ministry of Human Rights, through Minister Natalius Pigai, previously stated that it is preparing an advisory team to assess whether someone is an activist or not. According to him, the policy is to ensure that legal protection is only given to those who truly carry out the function of human rights defenders.

Wirya Adiwena stated that policies like this lack a clear legal basis because they fundamentally contradict international standards, particularly the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights Defenders. That declaration, said Wirya, explicitly states that anyone has the right to be a human rights defender as long as they oppose human rights violations in peaceful ways.

“The status of a human rights defender is inherent in a person’s actions and commitment, not in administrative validation from the government,” said Wirya. He also reminded that the state’s obligation is to protect human rights defenders, not to label them, let alone revoke their status.

Wirya also opined that Minister Pigai’s plan resembles the spirit of the screening or special study (litsus) programme during the New Order era, which aimed to select citizens who did not align with the interests of those in power.

Making the state the determinant of the validity of human rights activist status, said Wirya, also sets a bad precedent for human rights protection in Indonesia. “If implemented, this advisory team will certainly become a tool of administrative repression,” he said.

Wirya stated that instead of creating restrictive policies that shackle human rights defenders, the Ministry of Human Rights needs to focus on the root problems. For him, the Ministry should stop human rights violation practices by state apparatus, ensure accountability, and guarantee a safe space for every citizen to speak out, assemble, and monitor the running of government.

Quoted from Antara, the Ministry of Human Rights is preparing an advisory team to ensure that legal protection is only given to parties who truly carry out the function of human rights defenders. In an exclusive interview with Antara in Jakarta, Human Rights Minister Natalius Pigai said the advisory team would determine activist status.

Pigai stated that the mechanism is designed to filter activist claims while preventing the misuse of status in legal processes. He explained that the assessment is based on strict criteria that evaluate the context of a person’s actions at the time of the incident, not just their status or self-acknowledgement.

“So, it could be that a human rights activist, at a certain time the advisory team finds that he is working, even though his status is as a human rights activist, at the time he is working for payment, that cannot be a human rights activist,” said Pigai in Jakarta on Wednesday, 29 April 2026, quoted from Antara.