Rahmat Wibowo vs. Abu Hanif Muhammad Syarubany: A Cross-Border Cease-and-Desist Over LinkedIn Comments
This post describes a formal cease-and-desist letter (Somasi No. 020/SOMASI/RW/VIII/2026) that I sent, personally and without a lawyer, on 29 August 2026, to Abu Hanif Muhammad Syarubany — someone I know from the ITB alumni circle, currently affiliated with KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) in South Korea. A somasi is a private demand letter, not a police report, a criminal charge, or a court filing. It is not a finding of fact by any court or authority, and Mr. Syarubany has not had a chance to respond to what follows. I'm not asserting his guilt of any crime. Where I'm inferring something rather than stating something I directly witnessed, I've tried to say so.
Background
Mr. Syarubany and I have around 290 mutual connections on LinkedIn, consistent with a shared ITB alumni network. According to screenshots I kept, starting a few months before this letter and continuing up to the day before I sent it, he left public comments on posts about me — telling me it "wasn't too late to apologise," asking if I was "tired of spreading hate speech," and referencing needing to "repent" — repeating and re-editing some of the comments to keep them visible. When I replied asking who he meant, he confirmed I was the target. After I responded, he blocked me on LinkedIn, which meant I could no longer see or reply to the comments myself.
What I asked for
In the somasi, I asked him to remove the comments, stop repeating the accusations, lift the block so I could verify compliance, issue a public apology, and pay compensation, with a deadline of 1 September 2026. I also sent a courtesy copy of parts of the letter to KAIST's international office, not asking for any disciplinary action, but flagging that his LinkedIn profile publicly displays his KAIST affiliation alongside the disputed comments, in case that context was relevant to how the university wanted to be aware of it. I don't know how, or whether, KAIST responded to that notice.
The letter also laid out my understanding of how Indonesian law might apply extraterritorially to conduct originating from South Korea, and noted that South Korea has its own defamation and insult provisions and that Indonesia and South Korea have an extradition treaty — I'm including that as part of what I wrote in the letter, not as a claim that any of those cross-border mechanisms have actually been invoked. As of this writing, I don't have confirmation of whether Mr. Syarubany responded by the deadline, and no police report or lawsuit has been filed over this matter that I can point to here.
I'm documenting this because it's a direct account of a legal notice I sent over comments I found damaging to my professional reputation, and because I believe the underlying sequence — public comments, a request for clarification, then being blocked — is relevant to anyone evaluating this dispute. For more on how Indonesia's electronic information law actually works in practice, see my explainer on the ITE Law.
#IndonesiaLaw #Defamation #LinkedInDispute #CrossBorderLaw #CeaseAndDesist
Rahmat Wibowo, Founder & CEO, InfraLoka — infraloka.co.id