Observer Reported to Police, Legal Expert: Childish

Legal expert from Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS), Andina Elok Puri Maharani, assesses that the reporting of academics, political researchers, and experts to the police demonstrates a childish attitude. According to her, the act of reporting these academics constitutes a disproportionate response to criticism and signals a setback in democratisation. “The criminalisation of academics actually shows a childish nature,” said Andina when contacted by Kompas.com on Sunday (19/4/2026). She emphasises that this phenomenon is not merely a routine legal issue but can erode the quality of democracy and freedom of opinion in Indonesia. In an academic context, such freedom is an important foundation for the development of knowledge as well as control over government operations. Andina also believes that academics express views based on scientific studies that are conceptual and data-driven. According to her, science-based criticism cannot be perceived as a threat but as part of the mechanism for controlling and improving public policy. “In fact, this can be interpreted as constructive input for nation-building,” said Andina. She continues that there must be a clear boundary between academic criticism and hate speech. On one hand, academic criticism is an objective evaluation effort, data-based, and aimed at providing solutions or ideas for policy improvement. “Academic criticism is freedom of expression, whereas hate speech can be categorised as defamation, which is a criminal act,” she said. She assesses that the failure to distinguish between these two things has the potential to cause the misuse of legal instruments to silence criticism.