ICC Note: After more than seven months with little to no reports of church closures, this week has seen a spate of news emerging on Christian congregations forced from their places of worship in Indonesia. On the island of Sulawesi the local government actually began dismantling a church that had been forced to apply for a permit to fix its roof by protests from radical Islamic groups. The congregation had been conducting Sunday school in the building since 1985, well before Indonesia’s 2006 law on requiring places of worship to obtain a building permit came into effect. In Bandung, West Java, a often harassed church was stormed by radical Islamists on Nov. 24, and his since stopped holding services. The church, made up of around a thousand members, has relocated to a nearby “shop house” and  has halted services. In 2012, ICC recorded 50 church closures across Indonesia. 
12/6/2013 Indonesia (Jakarta Globe) – Two more Indonesian churches have been taken out of commission in Sulawesi and West Java over the last week as Christians and local governments once again locked horns over the issue of official building permits.
“In 1989, the building was transformed into a church,” Arruan Lenden, a leader of the South Sulawesi Christian Church (GKSS), told the Jakarta Globe on Friday. “Because it was made of wood, no permit was required.”
The Pangkep district government has been dismantling the church — located around 75 kilometers north of Makassar — since Wednesday, and the wooden structure was still being taken down on Friday.
The 75-square-meter building was originally put up as a Sunday school in 1985. At that time, some 400 local Christians were using a police dormitory as a place of worship, but the congregation was later told to move on to a room located at the district government offices. Church leaders maintain they were then given verbal permission to use the Sunday school on Jalan Andi Maurada as a church.
Arruan said that in 2011 they had asked the district chief for permission to renovate and to issue a building permit for the church. A permit for a house of worship requires 60 signatures from people living in the village where the building is located. While the congregation counted around 400 people as members, many of them live in surrounding villages and communities, and their signatures would not have been valid on a building permit.
The church was forced to stop the project to repair the roof because of a protest by the hard-line Islamic Joint Forum (FBUI).
“The condition of the building is worse this year; it’s rickety and leaking,” Arruan said. “We sent a letter to the Religious Affairs Ministry asking for them to issue a recommendation but they did not reply in time.”
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In a West Java subdistrict east of Bandung, a Pentecostal church built in 1987 looked set to suffer a similar fate after the government sealed the building last week, again citing a permit impasse.
“We suggest the church does not conduct any services before receiving the building permit,” Jatinangor subdistrict head Bambang Rianto said, as quoted by Tempo.
The church, located in Mekargalih village in Sumedang district, filed a permit application to the government but village chief, Arief Saefulloh, refused to sign in February, claiming that he had lost the paperwork.
Bambang said that he had assigned a team of officials to check the validity of signatures of the residents who had approved the church construction.
The church has endured a difficult 2013. Earlier in the year, the priest of the church, Bernhard Maukar was arrested and served three months for conducting a service in an unlicensed building. On Nov. 24, 2013, a church service was stopped when an intolerant group stormed the church.
The pastor’s wife, Corry Maukar, confirmed that the church had ceased activity since the end of November. The congregation members — more than 600 adults and 400 children — had moved to a shophouse nearby.
“We’re not allowed to worship; we have to wait for the permit,” Corry said on Friday afternoon. “A meeting in Nov. 29, 2013 involving all sides, including the district chief and neighborhood unit chief, decided to verify the signatures of residents.”
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