Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Official finding Claimed spiritual healing or mediumship Indonesia · 2026

Indonesia: the new criminal code makes claiming supernatural power to cause harm a crime — with no convictions yet

Record class

Context only

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

the Indonesian state, legislating against claimed supernatural coercion

Organization

Republic of Indonesia (Undang-Undang No. 1 Tahun 2023)

Spiritual nexus

This is the rare instance of a legal system naming this database's own mechanism directly: the offence is not the harm but the CLAIM of power to cause it — which is precisely how supernatural coercion works, since the threat alone secures compliance.

  • Curse or witchcraft threat
  • Threatened spiritual consequence

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2026-01-02 · statute in force; no prosecutions identified

    Republic of Indonesia — Article 252, Undang-Undang No. 1 Tahun 2023 (new KUHP). Article 252 of Indonesia's new criminal code, in force from 2 January 2026, criminalises declaring oneself to possess supernatural power capable of causing illness, death or suffering, carrying up to one year and six months' imprisonment and a fine of two hundred million rupiah, increased by a third for habitual practice. As of mid-July 2026, roughly six and a half months after it took effect, searches of Indonesian court and news sources identified no prosecution or conviction under the article.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • the criminalised conduct is the CLAIM itself — declaring oneself able to cause illness, death or suffering by supernatural means

Primary record

Sources

legal news court reporting statutory analysis Hukumonline: legal analysis of Article 252 of the new KUHP.

Indonesian legal-information service's analysis of the provision.

Related record

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