Jakarta — Indonesian human rights watchdog SETARA Institute called on President Prabowo Subianto on Thursday, 9 July 2026 to order an investigation into alleged obstruction by military personnel of a corruption probe, after soldiers were posted outside the residence of a senior Attorney General's Office (AGO) prosecutor during a week of police raids linked graft cases, including a coal procurement case.
SETARA Institute Chairperson Hendardi said the alleged actions by some army personnel to obstruct anti-corruption investigators from the national police and Jakarta police amounted to a serious incident.
"If it is true that this action was taken to protect a party under investigation or allegedly involved in a corruption case linked to an official within the AGO, then what is being shown to the public is not merely interference in the law enforcement process, but the use of the state's defense institution as a shield for the interests of corruptors," Hendardi said in a written statement.
Hendardi said no member of the armed forces has legal authority to obstruct investigations or searches conducted by law enforcement officers under existing regulations, calling the alleged military involvement a dangerous abuse of power.
"When armed forces are instead used to secure the interests of those involved in corruption, the threat we face is no longer merely corruption, but collusion between power, impunity and the coercive force of the state," he said.
The statement pointed to what it described as a broader pattern of expanding military involvement in civilian affairs in recent years, including in food security, education and public order enforcement, which Hendardi said falls outside the military's constitutional mandate for national defense.
Further Hendardi said the blurring of lines between defense and civilian law enforcement risked further misuse of military institutions to intervene in legal processes, and urged the government and House of Representatives to review policies that open space for such involvement.
The human rights defender called on Prabowo to instruct the Indonesia's National Military's (TNI) commander to fully investigate any personnel allegedly involved, make the findings public, and ensure that any soldier found to have obstructed legal proceedings faces criminal or disciplinary sanctions.
He also urged police to continue pursuing any act of obstruction of justice regardless of who is responsible, warning against setting a precedent that armed forces can be used to interfere with corruption investigations.
