Muslim groups disperse a Christian congregation in Bekasi, West Java, on June 18. (Photo: YouTube)
June 22 2023
Muslim groups in Indonesia continue to prevent Christians from holding religious activities inside houses as they were yet to receive a government permit, which is difficult to obtain in the most populous Muslim-majority country.
Disturbances occurred on June 18 at two places on the island of Java, the world’s most populous island and home to nearly 56 percent of the Indonesian population, adding to the long list of cases of suppression of religious minorities in the Southeast Asian nation.
In a video that went viral on June 20, a hardline Muslim group was seen disrupting a religious gathering of the New Testament Christian Church at a house in Bekasi, West Java.
The group, led by the head of the local community forum, came to the Dawn of Hope Prayer House and demanded that the faithful stop their activities as the place was not a house of worship.
Pastor Ellyson Lase of the New Testament Christian Church told UCA News on June 21 that they had received a warning last month from the forum head against conducting prayers at the house.
The pastor, however, told the head that he was imparting religious education to Christian students who do not get it at public schools.
“I am in charge of this place. I am in charge of this area and don’t make your own rules, follow my rules,” the forum head told the pastor.
Lase said they conduct worship in the house only on Sundays.
The police have started a probe into the incident, he added.
The second incident occurred in Banyuanyar, Solo City, Central Java, where Muslim groups, riding motorcycles, put up a banner at the door of a house that was used as a place of worship by the Nusukan Javanese Christian Church.
The banner said that the Muslim residents of Banyuanyar “reject the conversion of a residential house into a place of worship.”
Pastor Eko Prasetyo from the Nusukan Javanese Christian Church, however, denied that the congregation was using the building as a place of worship and a Sunday school.
Mayor Gibran Rakabumi, son of President Joko Widodo, visited the congregation on June 20, asking them to apply for a permit.
These two cases bring ill fame to freedom of religion in Indonesia, said the Solidarity Group for Victims of Violations on Freedom of Religion and Belief.
Pastor Pandjaitan of the group said that these cases illustrate how minority groups are vulnerable to various forms of pressure tactics in the largest Muslim country in the world.
“We just hope the government understands the difficulties that are often experienced by minority groups in building houses of worship,” he said.
Protestant Pastor Reverend Palti Pandjaitan said that minority groups often chose shortcuts because it is difficult to get a permit for building a house of worship.
“Because of that, the houses are used as places of worship,” Pastor Pandjaitan said.
Indonesia is still sticking to the 2006 rule which requires a minimum of 90 members and 60 signatures of support from other religions to build a house of worship, accompanied by recommendations from various agencies, including the Forum for Religious Harmony.
Religion Affairs Minister Yaqut Cholil Qoumas stated on June 5 that the government was planning to formulate new rules to make it easy for believers to start a place of worship.
Social activist and Catholic priest Father Antonius Benny Susetyo said that the pressure on minorities was a sufficient reason for the government to revise the regulations so as to guarantee freedom of religion to all people.
“That is a constitutional guarantee,” he told UCA News.
A report by the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace said that Catholic and Protestant Churches have been facing resistance to construction of their places of worship in Indonesia since 2017. – UCA News
