YLBHI: Payment to BEM UBK After Protest Threatens Student Movement Independence
The Indonesian Legal Aid Foundation (YLBHI) has stated that the alleged payment to members of the University of Bung Karno (UBK) Student Executive Board (BEM) poses a threat to the independence of the student movement. BEM UBK members allegedly received money after meeting with Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka following a demonstration last week.
YLBHI Chairman Muhamad Isnur said the issue is no longer simply about whether money changed hands, but about how power is allegedly used to manage, obscure, and even weaken public criticism originating from student movements. “The alleged provision of funds to BEM UBK students after the meeting with Gibran is a form of power intervention that has the potential to delegitimise the student movement,” Isnur said when met at the YLBHI Building in Jakarta on Tuesday, 23 June 2026.
According to Isnur, the student movement has historically possessed moral authority because it is born from political consciousness and alignment with public interests—not from power patronage or material transactions. He condemned any form of incentive used to obscure political realities. In political parlance, he described this pattern as “manufacturing public opinion”—an artificial effort to shape public opinion so that support for the authorities appears organic, thereby transforming marginal narratives into accepted consensus. “The people’s voice should be heard by the President and parliamentary leaders. Instead, that voice is being blurred by paid mobilisation,” he said.
Isnur noted that such practices have existed for a long time and should never be tolerated. He pointed to the depoliticisation of campuses during the New Order era, which was carried out through overt repression such as arrests, kidnappings, and media bans, as well as the NKK/BKK (Campus Life Normalisation/Student Coordination Board) policy in the late 1970s. He argued that when student movements begin to operate based on financial incentives, it triggers not just an ethical crisis but a depoliticisation of criticism. Criticism, which should serve as a tool of social control, loses its impact because it has been absorbed into the orbit of power interests. In such conditions, democracy no longer functions through a contest of ideas but through the management of perception.
A video circulated on social media showing Muhammad Abdimaludin, Chairman of BEM at UBK’s Faculty of Law, admitting to receiving millions of rupiah. In the viral clip, Abdi confessed before the university’s academic community that he accepted money to prevent the crowd he was leading from demonstrating at the Horse Statue area in Central Jakarta. Previously, UBK students had held a protest titled “Tata Ulang Indonesia” (Reorganise Indonesia) on Monday, 15 June 2026. The crowd moved from the UBK campus in Cikini towards the Horse Statue but clashed with police in the Tugu Tani area. Following this, protest leaders were invited to meet with Vice President Gibran Rakabuming Raka. Fifteen student representatives attended a closed-door mediation lasting 60 minutes, where they discussed issues including the controversial Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) programme and the Village Red Cooperatives (Koperasi Desa Merah Putih). After the meeting, Abdi had stated that the Vice President noted their demands, which included an evaluation and improvement of irregularities in the MBG and cooperative programmes, and he vowed to stage a larger protest if their demands were not met within 5x24 hours.