There No Country in Southeast Asia with an Open Civil Space by 2025

According to Civicus Monitor, a global civil society alliance, no Southeast Asian country will have an open civic space by 2025.

Civicus defines civic space as policies, laws, and practices that respect the freedoms of association, expression, and peaceful assembly, as well as the extent to which governments protect these fundamental rights.

This is outlined in the report People Power Under Attack 2025, which involved research from 20 civil society organizations worldwide.

The research took place from November 1, 2024 to October 31, 2025, and successfully identified 3,120 violations of civil liberties globally.

The assessment of each country is divided into five categories: open (81-100), narrowing (61-80), hindered (41-60), repressed (21-40), and closed (1-20).

With this division, in Southeast Asia, Timor Leste has the highest civic space score in 2025, at 72, placing it in the narrowing category.

Meanwhile, Indonesia's score of 42 points places it in the hindered category. This score ranks Indonesia third, better than Singapore, as shown in the chart above.

Civic space in Indonesia has not yet reached the open category due to ongoing cases of activists being detained, including Delpedro Marhaen, who is facing prison charges.

"Just for expressing their opinions and posting messages on social media to support the Gen Z-led protests in August 2025," Civicus explained in its report.

"The protests were triggered by the government's announcement of housing benefits for legislative members. These activists were accused of inciting violence," it added.

Recently, Indonesia's civic space was also highlighted after Andrie Yunus, Deputy Coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence (KontraS), was attacked with acid by an unknown person in Jakarta on Thursday evening (March 12, 2026).

According to the civil society coalition, before the incident, Andrie had received a number of intimidations, including suspicious calls from unknown numbers.

The coalition also highlighted Andrie's role as a member of the Fact-finding Commission (KPF), which in the past five months has conducted independent investigations into a series of demonstrations and riots in August 2025.

"The brutal attack on Andrie Yunus cannot be viewed as an ordinary criminal act," said the coalition, as reported by Katadata.co.id, Friday (13/3/2026).