Minister of Education: The Highest Right to Freedom of Expression in 2025

JAKARTA - Human Rights Minister (HAM) Natalius Pigai said the 2025 Human Rights Index reached a score of 63.20 with the highest achievement seen in the aspect of the right to food and the right to freedom of expression.

Pigai said the right to food received the highest score in the economic, social and cultural dimensions (ekosob), while the right to freedom of expression was the highest achievement in the civil and political dimensions (sipol).

"The human rights index value of the ecosystem is the right to food, the highest. From the civil and political, the highest is freedom of expression," said Pigai at the kaleidoscope of the performance of the Ministry of Human Rights 2025 in Jakarta, Monday, quoted by Antara.

He explained that the fulfillment of the right to food was in line with the focus of President Prabowo Subianto and the government's program, namely Free Nutritious Meals (MBG) and food security. The government's efforts are considered to be able to meet the food needs of the community.

"The President announced the MBG program. Then, food availability. All government efforts with the trillion-dollar budget disbursed by the President cannot lie about the numbers, it turns out to be in line with the conditions of national development and the direction of government policy, the right to food, the highest," said Pigai.

In addition, Pigai said freedom of expression in Indonesia runs without restrictions or restraint.

"This can be seen from the dynamics of the public, social media users, mass media in the Republic of Indonesia can express their opinions, thoughts, feelings, demands, support, efforts, lamentations to the government freely, as widely as possible," he said.

The Minister of Pigai said that Indonesia is currently experiencing a democracy surplus. According to him, there are no conditions created by the state to degrade freedom of expression through certain regulations.

"If someone says that freedom of expression is restrained, where are the conditions that create restraint on freedom of expression? Where are the conditions? I haven't seen any government regulations that restrict freedom of expression today, not yet," he said.

The Human Rights Index released by the Ministry of Human Rights and the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) on Monday, December 15, 2025, consists of the ecosystem and civil society dimensions. Overall, the ecosystem score reached 68.97 and the civil society reached 58.28.