BOGOR, Indonesia — Members of a church in Bogor, West Java, are determined to continue meeting outside their sealed building each Sunday until they are granted freedom to worship inside it, despite a ban on street meetings issued by the mayor.
“The church will never give up meeting together,” a local source who preferred to remain unnamed said of the Indonesian Christian Church, in the Yasmin area of Bogor.
The ban on street meetings forced church members to worship at an alternate location Oct. 23.
Amid the stand-off, religious freedom for groups such as the Yasmin church would be dramatically reduced under a “religious tolerance bill” under consideration by the Ministry of Religious Affairs, critics of the proposal say.
On Oct. 9, Yasmin church members and police officers clashed on the street in front of the sealed church building over the Christians’ right to meet there. According to local media reports, a police chief has accused church members of knocking him unconscious, while the church has countersued police for disrupting its service.
In defiance of a Supreme Court order early this year affirming Yasmin’s constitutional right to freedom of worship, Bogor mayor Diani Budianto canceled the church’s worship permit, locked and sealed its church building and banned church members from meeting on the street.
Share with others: