TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsConcern grows over planned expansion of police roles in free meals agency, drug regulator
Proposed amendment to the Police Law has alarmed critics over new provisions that could allow active-duty officers to serve at two agencies in charge of rolling out free meals and regulating food and drugs, stoking fresh fear of police encroachment into civic spaces.
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
Police officers stand guard in front of the Aceh Provincial Legislative Council (DPRA) building on Sept. 1, 2025, in Banda Aceh, Aceh, during a protest by students demanding police reform and the dissolution of the House of Representatives. (AFP/Chaideer Mahyuddin)
A
proposed amendment to the Police Law has alarmed critics over new provisions that could allow active-duty officers to serve in two agencies in charge of rolling out free meals and regulating food and drugs, adding to growing concerns over police encroachment into civic spaces.
The House of Representatives Commission III overseeing legal affairs kicked off deliberations to revise the 2002 Police Law last Thursday, when the government presented its list of proposed changes to the House’s version of the bill.
Among the government’s proposals is a set of provisions that allow active-duty police officers to occupy positions outside the police institution “as long as the posts are deemed related to policing”.
Under proposed Article 28A, police officers could hold managerial and nonmanagerial positions at ministries and agencies to maintain public order, public protection and public services.
The government document further says that state institutions that fall under the public protection and services category include the ones responsible for “food and drug supervision” and “national nutrition and food affairs”.
Security analysts have since suspected that the provision would effectively allow active-duty police officers to serve at the Food and Drug Monitoring Agency (BPOM) and the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), which oversees President Prabowo Subianto’s flagship free meal program for millions of students nationwide.
The draft revision prepared by the House, meanwhile, excludes BGN and BPOM from its lists of 17 government agencies and ministries to which police officers could be appointed. But the government is now proposing the House’s list be revised to include the two agencies.
