Anita Rachman – Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto was criticized by lawmakers on Thursday for employing "misleading" and "sick" logic in his continued defiance of a Supreme Court ruling on the closed GKI Yasmin church.
Diani was appearing at a hearing of the House Commission III, which oversees legal affairs, when the seeming duplicity of his answers to lawmakers elicited a wave of disgust from some of them.
The Supreme Court ruled in December that the closure was unlawful and ordered its reopening, but the city government has ignored the ruling.
The mayor has used a number of reasons to keep the church closed, most recently saying the church could not be on a street that had an Islamic name.
Commission chairman Benny Kabur Harman opened Thursday's hearing by asking Diani whether he had abided by a Supreme Court ruling ordering him to re-open the church.
Diani answered "yes." But later in the meeting the commission members learned that he had issued an order to revoke the building permit completely.
"You told us you had abided the ruling issued by the Supreme Court, but then you issued another local regulation that revokes the building permit completely?" Benny asked.
Diani replied that he had abided by the court ruling, "but since you asked the second question, yes, I have issued a letter to completely revoke the building permit. But this time, with the solution."
The mayor said he needed to revoke the permit because it was likely forged and the church was a disruptive presence in the neighborhood. His statement was answered by some supporters of the church present shouting "Lies" at the mayor.
During the meeting, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) revoked its political support for Diani due to disappointment over his stubbornness. "[His] misleading logic is the logic of a sick person," PDI-P lawmaker Eva Kusuma Sundari said.
The mayor is supported by a coalition of political parties that includes the Golkar Party and Prosperous Justice Party (PKS).
Activists like Shinta Nuriyah, wife of the late former president Abdurrahman Wahid, and prominent lawyer Todung Mulya Lubis were also invited to speak by the House, stating their disappointment in the mayor.
Todung said Diani "was playing with words" to justify revoking the church's building permit and defying the Supreme Court ruling.
"This is a very poor legal education that has been undertaken by the mayor, and he doesn't deserve to become a mayor," Todung said, drawing a long round of applause from the audience.
GKI Yasmin spokesman Bona Sigalingging said that whatever stance Diani insisted on taking, the church and its congregation would keep fighting. "What we are fighting for is to keep Indonesia as a home for all groups to perform and worship," he said.