Abstract
This article examines criminal liability for demonstration documentation by rigorously separating three distinct legal bases: recording an event, disseminating the resulting material, and intentionally assisting an underlying offence. Bandung District Court Decision No. 1027/Pid.Sus/2025/PN Bdg is used as a normative case study. The analysis combines statutory, case, and conceptual approaches to Law No. 1 of 2024 on Electronic Information and Transactions, Constitutional Court Decision No. 105/PUU-XXII/2024, and the former Criminal Code rules on criminal assistance applicable to the August 2025 tempus delicti. The study finds that the absence of professional-journalist status does not by itself make recording or dissemination “without right”. Criminal assistance requires intentional and functionally relevant facilitation of the principal offence; recording conduct after a completed violent act therefore does not automatically assist that completed act. Following Constitutional Court Decision No. 105/PUU-XXII/2024, Article 28(2) in conjunction with Article 45A(2) must be confined to intentional and public identity-based hate content that creates a real risk of discrimination, hostility, or violence. A closed WhatsApp transmission must consequently be distinguished from broader public social-media publication, while hostility toward the police as a state institution cannot simply be equated with hatred based on the protected identity grounds. The district-court decision is treated as an illustration of first-instance judicial reasoning rather than binding precedent.