House Speaker: Perpetrators of Sexual Violence at UI Must Be Tried
House of Representatives Speaker Puan Maharani is urging that the 16 University of Indonesia students suspected of committing sexual violence be processed through legal channels. The politician from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle emphasised that there must be no tolerance for violence anywhere, especially in educational institutions.
“We of course reject sexual violence anywhere. And they must of course be tried fairly,” Puan said at the DPR Complex in Jakarta on Thursday, 16 April 2026.
Puan called on the university to evaluate and mitigate to prevent similar incidents from recurring. She reminded that campuses must be safe places for the academic community to pursue education.
She also urged that no one protect or grant impunity to perpetrators of sexual violence. “Everyone must be brave in speaking out about this and there must be no sexual violence anywhere.”
As many as 16 students from the University of Indonesia’s Faculty of Law are suspected of committing sexual violence. They are suspected of having sexually charged conversations discussing other students in their internal group. Those conversations circulated on social media platform X via a post from the account @sampahfhui on Saturday, 11 April 2026.
The victim’s legal representative, Timotius Rajagukguk, stated that the victims of the alleged harassment involving University of Indonesia Faculty of Law students number 20 female students and seven lecturers. According to Timotius, the case has been occurring since 2025, and the victims already knew they had been harassed that year.
UI’s Director of Public Relations, Media, Government, and International Relations, Erwin Agustian Panigoro, said that UI has deactivated the academic status of the 16 students suspected of being involved in the harassment incident. He assured that the university will impose sanctions if they are proven to have committed sexual harassment.
The deactivation is not the final sanction; rather, Erwin stated it is part of the administrative process for examining the 16 University of Indonesia Faculty of Law students.