Indonesia

"About 100 members of the Filadelfia congregation of the Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP) arrived at their church on Sunday morning but were blocked from entering by members of Karawang public order (Satpol PP) officials and police officers. Instead, the church members were told to use a member’s house to hold the Mass."

In another sign of intolerance towards Christianity in Indonesia, residents of the city of Bekasi recently gathered to block members of a Christian church from holding services in their church building. The violent blockade was contained by police, but the church goers were forced to hold their service where they stood. The incident was caught on video. 

He said the congregation used to coordinate with the police on where it would hold its services, but services were constantly interrupted by groups of Muslim hard-liners. 

When he and his wife were hired by church elders in 2001, he learned many of his parishioners were Indonesian. Virtually all had overstayed tourist visas given out by American officials apparently concerned about the attacks on Christians in the world’s most populous Islamic country.

The building site was seized on 21 March, and is now surrounded with barbed wire. For Catholics, it is a patent violation of religious freedom since the building committee had all the right papers. Some local Muslim groups claim that signatures were falsified. The local government said it wants to use the site for an agricultural research center.

Two individuals have been arrested after they attacked a protestant church in Indonesia. The Christian minorities face attacks and other forms of persecution at the hands of radical  Muslims. 

Eddy Setiono, a convicted Indonesian terrorist, recently revealed to an Indonesian court how he and Umar Patek, one of Indonesia's most wanted terrorists for nearly a decade, traveled around on Christmas Eve, 2000 setting up bombs at churches disguised as gifts. The bombs killed 19.  Umar Patek is finally on trail for these crimes after being arrested and extradited to Indonesia in 2011. 

Members of the Yesmin Church protested outside the Merdeka Palace, the residence of the Indonesian president, on Sunday following the forced closure of their church by local authorities, Asia News reports.

“[Saul] Timisela, 44, of Woodbridge, N.J., is one of 80 Indonesian Christians living in New Jersey who fled religious persecution from Indonesia, the world’s most populous Islamic country,” The Washington Post reports.

Last November, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom noted that there were “strong political forces, terrorist networks and extremist groups that continue to be serious obstacles to Indonesia’s democratic trajectory and a source of ongoing violations of religious freedom and related human rights” in the country. 

Some experts suggest that the demand to change the PMI symbol stems from the PKS's desire to link the Indonesian Red Cross to the Islamic Red Crescent.

Former Vice President Jusuf Kalla has offered a helping hand as a mediator in the GKI Yasmin dispute, saying he is happy to help if the opposing parties — the Bogor city administration and the embattled church’s congregation — ask for his help. But Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto quickly rejected the offer, saying the city administration did not need a mediator. 

Islamist leaders have been able to gain support to spread fundamentalist views violating Indonesia's constitutional values and international human rights norms, due to youth unemployment, poverty and the lack of effective justice mechanisms in public institutions. Largely unchallenged inter-religious conflicts and an increase in the number of attacks on minorities have been recently witnessed.

Andreas Yewangoe, chairman of the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI), said on Wednesday that there was deep frustration in the Christian community over the state’s failure to make the Bogor administration comply with a Supreme Court order to unseal the church and allow the congregation to worship in peace.