Religious Violence Incidents Fall in 2025, Residents Emerge as Highest Perpetrators

Setara Institute has released a report on the state of freedom of religion and belief (FRB) in 2025. Setara Institute highlighted a downward trend in religiously motivated violence in Indonesia in 2025 compared to 2024.

“When we look at and compare it with the number of incidents and actions we recorded in the Freedom of Religion and Belief report from the previous year, 2024, there has indeed been a slight decline,” said Harkirtan Kaur, Religious Freedom/Belief Researcher at Setara Institute, in the Menteng area, Central Jakarta, on Tuesday (10 March 2026).

Setara Institute revealed that there were 331 acts resulting from 221 incidents of religiously motivated violence throughout 2025. In contrast, in 2024 there were 402 acts resulting from 260 incidents of religiously motivated violence.

“We recorded that throughout 2025 there were 221 incidents of violations with a total of 331 acts,” she said.

Nevertheless, Setara Institute assessed that these figures do not yet signal a positive shift in tolerance attitudes in Indonesia. Harkirtan noted that new patterns of violence still existed in 2025.

“Actually, this decline is not a sign or signal of positivity, because when we move into subsequent findings, we will also discover new patterns that have actually emerged throughout 2025,” she said.

She then highlighted several cases of religiously motivated violence throughout 2025. One case highlighted was the attack on the Indonesian Faithful Christian Church (GKSI) in Padang.

“There are still many acts involving disruptions to places of worship, prohibition of religious building construction, and religious activities, including also the attack at GKSI Padang Sarai,” she said.

Harkirtan Kaur also detailed the groups most involved in religiously motivated violence cases. She noted that citizen groups were most frequently involved.

“Non-state actors’ actions remained higher than state actors’ actions. Non-state actors’ actions totalled 197 acts whilst state actors’ actions totalled 128 acts,” she said.

“For non-state actors, we have actually discovered a new pattern, where in this year citizen groups became the highest non-state actors in perpetrating violations of religious freedom and belief rights, where we recorded 61 acts carried out by citizen groups. This was then followed by community organisations or mass organisations, then the Indonesian Ulema Council (MUI), then religious leaders, then Inter-Faith Harmony Forum (FKUB) officials and also individuals,” she explained.