Yogyakarta, February 14th 2025─The public lecture titled “Holding the State Accountable: Human Right Commitments and Institutional Responsibility” discussed the role of the state and its institutions in ensuring the protection of human rights. Through discussions with human rights practitioners, the lecture looked at the state’s commitment and institutional accountability in ensuring human rights in Indonesia.

Human rights cannot be implemented when there is no mechanism, or when the mechanism for implementing human rights is weak. Although human rights mechanisms have been regulated at the international level such as the Paris Principles, every time there is a human rights violation at the domestic level, the resolution takes precedence over national mechanisms. Meanwhile, national human rights protection institutions vary from the Indonesian Child Protection Commission (KPAI), National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (Komisi Kebenaran dan Rekonsiliasi). For this reason, the seminar organized by the study program of the Department of Politics and Government at Faculty of Social and Political Sciences of UGM aims to examine the standards of work carried out by human rights protection institutions in Indonesia. read more

Yogyakarta, January 15th 2025 ─ Looking at the movement of labor organizations in Indonesia, Fisipol Corner of Universitas Gadjah Mada held a book review session of Labor and the State in Indonesia and Labor Writes 3: Split, Move on Wednesday (15/1). Both books contain reflections on labor experiences that are packaged in history so as to produce a picture of the political economy situation from time to time.

Vedi R. Hadiz, author of Labor and the State in Indonesia, states that the cultural condition of the current government’s fundamental system is not much different from the New Order. Starting from the question of why the voice of workers is still weak, even though democratization has been running after the reformation, Vedi thinks that this condition is due to the complex situation of the government. “Even though during the new order, the institutions and the government were destroyed, the power relations are still running until now,” explained Vedi. read more

Yogyakarta, 24 January 2025–CfDS Fisipol UGM held another discussion session at the DigiTalk event, “Examining Social Cyber Security: Indonesia’s New Digital Threat?”. The discourse examined the problems developing amid increasingly massive digital transformation and the rise of online misinformation. Therefore, cybersecurity becomes crucial for integrating technological protection with socio-cultural awareness through effective regulation. 

“Social cybersecurity focuses on manipulating and influencing individual humans, groups, or communities that impact social, cultural, and political behaviour. Both use technology, but the technology is not to steal credentials or take over an electronic system. But it is used to influence the mindset of the target, community, or group,” said Dhoni Kurniawan, Policy Analyst of the Indonesian National Cyber and Crypto Agency.  read more