Jakarta – Vice President Jusuf Kalla has declared Indonesia the most tolerant Muslim-majority country in the world, in a Christmas Day message that came as authorities in Bogor, south of Jakarta, threatened to tear down a church.
Kalla, speaking in Banda Aceh ahead of commemorations for the 10th anniversary of the Indian Ocean tsunami, said on Thursday that Indonesia was largely free of conflict, allowing its people to "live harmoniously."
"In the Muslim-majority world, Indonesia is the most harmonious," he said as quoted by Republika Online. "There's no [conflict] here that compares with anything in any other country. We live together the most harmoniously," Kalla said.
His remarks on Thursday afternoon came just a few hours after the public order agency, or Satpol PP, aided by a mob, broke up a planned Christmas morning service by the beleaguered GKI Yasmin congregation in Bogor.
The congregation, which has been locked out of its church since April 2010, intended to hold its Christmas service on the sidewalk outside the church, as it has done for the past four years, but was heckled and taunted by a mob claiming to be local residents.
Bogor Satpol PP officers, who had been deployed to the church by municipal authorities from Wednesday night, sided with the mob and broke up the planned service, warning the congregation that the confrontation could escalate if they insisted on holding the service outside the church.
Outnumbered by both the mob and the Satpol PP officers, the congregation of mostly women was forced to abandon its plan and later held a joint Christmas service outside the State Palace in Central Jakarta with members of the HKBP Filadelfia church from Bekasi, which has also been locked out of its lawful church.
Eko Prabowo, the Satpol PP chief, told reporters that the city was considering tearing down the half-built GKI Yasmin church if it continued to be a source of "friction" between residents and the congregation. He claimed the city was not opposed to the presence of the church on religious grounds, but because the congregation did not have a building permit, or IMB, for it.
"This is an IMB problem, not a prohibition [on the congregation] practicing their faith," he said as quoted by Kompas.com. "So we can tear down this building."
The church did have an IMB, issued by the Bogor administration in 2006, but it was revoked in February 2010 following protests from hard-line Muslims who objected to having a church in their midst. In April that year, the city sealed off the church.
The congregation took the matter to the courts, and won rulings from both the West Java and Jakarta state administrative courts ordering the city to unseal the church and reinstate the IMB. Those rulings were backed up by a Supreme Court order in December 2010, but the Bogor administration has continued to flout the authority of the highest court in the land.
The central government has refused to force the Bogor administration to comply with the law, arguing that it has no power to do so under the principle of regional autonomy.
Source: http://thejakartaglobe.beritasatu.com/news/kalla-claims-tolerance-bogor-threatens-demolish-church/