Wawan Hermawan Sentenced to Seven Months in Prison for Manipulating August Demonstration

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The administrator and owner of the Instagram account @bekasi_menggugat, Wawan Hermawan, has been sentenced to seven months in prison after being proven to have manipulated and edited posts related to protest actions that led to unrest in August 2025.

Presiding Judge Adek Nurhadi imposed the sentence, deducting the time already served by Wawan.

“The defendant Wawan Hermawan has been proven legally and convincingly guilty of committing a criminal offence,” stated the Presiding Judge during the verdict reading at the Central Jakarta District Court on Tuesday.

Thus, Wawan was found guilty of violating Article 28 paragraph (3) in conjunction with Article 45A paragraph (3) of Law No. 11 of 2008 on Electronic Information and Transactions, along with Article 160 of the Criminal Code.

The sentence handed down by the panel of judges was lower than the previous prosecutor’s demand of one year in prison.

In the case, Wawan, who is also a student, was charged with manipulating social media content in the form of anarchic invitations during the August 2025 demonstration.

The manipulation was allegedly carried out by Wawan using his Instagram account named @bekasi_menggugat.

It was stated that the @bekasi_menggugat account has been controlled by Wawan since 27 March 2025, with 826 followers. On it, Wawan uploaded content in the form of invitations to join protest actions in August 2025.

Then, on 21 August 2025, Wawan, through the Instagram social media account named @bekasi_menggugat, disseminated several pieces of electronic information in the form of images on Instagram feed and stories, which essentially invited the public to carry out protest actions.

Subsequently, on 27 August 2025, the @bekasi_menggugat account was tagged by another account named @kepolu1397. After that, Wawan deliberately reposted the tagged content by altering its narrative.

The narrative in the content uploaded by Wawan was titled “Said Iqbal Urges Anarko, Students & BEM to Immediately Join the 28 August Action: This is Purely an Indonesian People’s Movement.”

The upload did not match the original narrative, as there was no call for students and the Student Executive Board (BEM) to join the protest.

It was stated that the actual narrative published by the online media Redaksikota.com on 26 August 2025, with the title “Said Iqbal Urges Anarko, Students & BEM Not to Join the 28 August Action: This is Purely a Labour Issue!”