BEKASI, Indonesia — Efforts by local officials in Bekasi, West Java, to close a church met with stiff resistance as a defiant lawyer and weeping women refused to allow it.
Women of the Huria Christian Protestant Batak Church cried in protest March 1 as officials from the Bekasi Building Department placed a brown signboard of closure on the church building in Pondok Timur, Bekasi, 12 miles from Jakarta.
The seal stayed in place for about two minutes before some of the shrieking women tore it down. The sign was trampled as furious church members stampeded over it, shouting and screaming, and Bekasi city officials turned and ran as the congregation fanned out.
The defiance followed a heated debate within the same church building minutes before, as the Christians had invited the Bekasi officials inside to discuss the matter when they arrived to seal the building. The discussion soon became heated as a city official asserted that the church did not have a building permit and had to be sealed. The church had applied for a worship building permit in 2006 but local officials had yet to act on it, according to Pastor Luspida Simanjuntak. At the meeting inside the church building, attorney Refer Harianya said the sealing was illegal because officials had failed to follow proper procedures.
“Because you have not followed the procedures which I have outlined, we will act as if the sealing never took place,” Harianya told city officials as members of the congregation cheered. He said if the city tried to close the church, then they would be named in a lawsuit. One of the officials responded, “Go ahead and sue.”
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