Yuli Krisna – Police in Bandung on Thursday nearly disbanded a group discussion organized by the Setara Institute for Peace and Democracy. In the end, however, they provided security for the meeting to push through.

During the meeting, Setara tried to bring together congregation members of churches that were forcibly shut down, as well as believers of the Ahmadiyah, a Muslim minority sect, who were scheduled to meet up with officials of the West Java administration.

"The incident [with the police] occurred after members of the FPI [Islamic Defenders Front] showed up to protest the discussion, saying that Setara was anti-Islam," Setara researcher Ismail Hasani told the Jakarta Globe.

"Even as the discussion commenced at the Amaroossa Hotel on Jalan Aceh in Bandung as planned, following negotiations between Setara and the police, not a single invited official from the West Java administration arrived to attend the discussion," he added.

A string of houses of worship, including Ahmadiyah mosques, under the jurisdiction of West Java, like Bekasi, Bogor and Depok, have been forcibly shut down by local administrations following pressure from Islamic hard-line organizations.

The Setara Institute recorded 28 attacks and violations of Christians' right to worship in the first seven months of 2010 alone, up from 18 in all of 2009 and 17 in 2008.