It was interesting to read the Annual Report of Aliansi Jurnalis Independen (AJI) Indonesia a while back in relations to press freedom, welfare and professionalism. AJI issued situation update about press freedom, media and journalist situation, announced at the beginning of the year or end of year, as presented by Anastasya A that the Annual Report served not just to remind the public but also to offer recommendations to stakeholders.
AJI Indonesia recorded 89 violence cases. Pressures and Threats were increasingly real – from intervention in editing room to pressures during coverage, the good news was that the Supreme Court rejected CNN lawsuit regarding unilateral wage deduction and layoff lawsuit. This was a small victory for the media workers in the midst of major layoff of journalists in 2025.
AJI Indonesia chairperson, Nany Afrida asked “what would be the critical take-away? She thought this year was worse in a number of ways that kept the number of violence increasing. There was a shift in violence and also other issues. There were issues about the many problems associated with journalists.
AJI was set up in 1994 as a response to the closure of Tempo, Detik, and Editor. To date, there were 40 city AJI in Indonesia. The number of AJI members stood at 1,800 from a number of media, a characteristic of workers’ union.
Nany then offered some notes
- Media Stability Crisis and Workers’ fate – weakening financial and operational stability of media workers particularly journalists – cost rationalization, merging desks, encouraging extreme multi-tasking, and hiring freelancers without sufficient protection.
- Narrowing public spaces. This happened globally, and in Indonesia (claim such as being enemy to the people, not neutral) : journalists, activists and people voicing criticism who faced risks of being reported, criminalization, or coordinated counter attack that made it clear about self-censorship.
- Threats against press freedom and journalists’ safety – there was acknowledgement, and yet the implementation was lacking, there were impunity and ensnaring laws.
- Technological Dimension; between opportunities, business crisis and control – dependance on non-transparent algorythm, technology became new infrastructure for monitoring and repression (content blocking, surveilllence). Journalists were not contacted by media owners. Many laws were ensnaring, such as Law on Electronic Information Technology.
Authoritarian Statism:
Konsolidasi kekuasaan eksekutif, kedekatan elite politik dengan pemilik media, serta penggunaan perangkat hukum dan regulasi digital untuk menekan kebebasan sipil, termasuk kebebasan pers.
Criminalizing Journalism:
Often packaged in such narrative as "anti-hoax," "national security," or "protection of public morality."
Creating a climate of fear that eroded the key function of the press: to keep a watchful eyes on those in power and allow space for public deliberation.
The Press Council with its minimum budget in 2026 was facing the threat of paralysis and not being able to perform one of its functions: channeling people’s complain, monitoring journalistic code of conduct and monitoring press freedom.
Escalation of Violence and Attempts to Muzzle the Press
-AJI Indonesia recorded 89 cases of violence against journalists in 2025. There were 73 violence cases against journalists in 2024.
-There was increasing trend of intervention and intimidation in editing room which tended to be normalized.
Three dominant categories of violence:
Physical violence (30 cases), digital attacks (24 cases), terror and intimidation (22 cases).
*Showing shift in the form of threat to cyber space.
*Other types of violence: coverage ban, destruction of equipment, journalistic data deletion, strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP), to self-cencorship practices after external pressures.
Perpetrator of Violence: Police Personnel (21 cases), Military Personnel (6 cases), Unknown to victim (29 cases) t majority related to digital and terror attacks.
Outstanding Cases:
Protest Actions in August 2025
Criminalization through civil court: lawsuit of agricultural minister against Tempo Magazine
Selective legal proceeding with regards to the death of Karo journalist.
Terror pig’s head and dead rat - Tempo.
Intimidation against journalists who covered international aid, erasing stories in major media, to stopping live coverage from disaster locations.
Collaboration with the Regional and Internasional.
AJI Indonesia consolidate communication and networks with organizations in Southeast Asia through PFMSea (Press Freedom Monitoring South East Asia).
AJI Indonesia through international relations office. And inter-organization succeeded in helping Nany Afrida (chairwomen of AJI Indonesia) to become the president of Internasional Federation of Journalist (IFI) of Asia-Pacific region for 2025-2028.
Digital Violence
- AJI Advocacy Division and Internet Division reported new record in digital violence in 2025 - 29 cases.
-The highest in the last 12 years
-The dominant attack in 2025 was DDos (Distributed Denial of Services) agaist online media that prevented the media management from accessing CMS and the public could not access information from the media being attacked.
-Other attacks included freezing social media account by the platform
-One new type of attack was messages or factitious order appearing in two media offices in Batam and Tanjungpinang.
Wave of journalist layoff
Total victims of layoff increased to 922 people
The detail in 2024 was 373 people, and in 2025 it was 549 people.
Victory for Workers’ Union at CNN Indonesia
Workers’ Union of SPCI (Solidaritas Pekerja CNN Indonesia) got its legal victory in the industrial relations case against management.
CNN Indonesia management had to pay the remaining wages previously being cut and severance pay for workers who were members of SPCI.
The case background was about unilateral wage cut by CNN Indonesia Management in early 2024. Workers who were members of SPCI were unilaterally laid off. This action was known as union busting. Then workers who were members of SPCI filed a lawsuit to Industrial relations Court.
Ethical Violation and Prevention of Sexual Violence in Media
-The Press “diseases” were self-censor and the fall of the firewall between editors and business that severely tarred the image of journalism
-A number of media had close business or received significant advertisement from large environmentally-destructive corporations
-There was editor’s policy to avoid critical or comprehensive coverage of government institutions.
-In 2025 The Press Council noted 1,166 complaints in relations to news. The majority of complaints were about balance in reporting (covering both sides), click-bait titles, use of photos without permission, and hate speech.
Ethical Violations and Prevention of Sexual Violence in Media
-There were still news coverage about sexual orientation that did not respect diversity of gender identity, disregard for the importance of inclusiveness towards gender-Based minority groups kelompok minoritas berbasis gender.
-In August 2025, with the supports of internasional media and European Union, AJI Indonesia prepared policy paper regarding mechanism for reporting sexual violence in mass media.
Preoare standard operational procedure for prevention and management of sexual violence and accompany a number of media in preparing such procedures.
Recommendation
Urge security officials to address cases of violence, terror and intimidation against journalists and to not promote impunity.
Protect media and journalists doing their jobs as per Law No. 49 Year 1999.
The importance of standard operational procedures for digital safety and security audit of Press companies, journalists to increase mitigation, reduce negative impacts of attacks – physical, legal and psychosocial
Recommend media companies to treat journalists fairly and humanly
The importance of standard operational procedures for addressing sexual violence in the Newsroom
Ask all journalist to join unions.
