Hasyim Widhiarto, Jakarta – Three months after the Bekasi administration sealed off the small plot of land where they had been conducting church services, members of the Filadelfia Huria Kristen Batak Protestant (HKBP) group are still in limbo as to whether they can proceed with the construction of a new church there.

"Nothing has actually changed," HKBP spokesman Tigor Tampubolon said Thursday.

Three months ago, the administration sealed off a 1,000-square-meter plot of land in Jejalen Jaya subdistrict, on which the HKBP had planned to construct a new church.

Since the closure, hundreds of Christians from the area have attended regular services on the bare plot of land and in the adjacent street. "Currently, we run our service from 9 a.m. until noon just as we used to, but now we're outside," he said.

Before the closure, a group organized by the Muslim Communication Forum (FKUI) had come out to protest every time the Christian group was conducting a service on the land, arguing that a church would be an insult to the village's Muslim majority.

Rather than organizing talks involving the two sides, Bekasi Regent Sa'duddin sealed off the land without prior notification.

Tigor said his group had filed a lawsuit against the regent's decision with the Bandung State Administrative Court last week after efforts to involve the administration came to nothing.

"This is not about winning or losing, it's about opening the eyes of the public and the government to religious bigotry in the country," he said. He added that HKBP had hired 12 lawyers to fight the administration's decision.

Lawyer Thomas Tampubolon, who leads the congregation's legal defense team, said there was no reason the congregation could not win the dispute.

"The congregation had actually obtained approval to establish the church from more than the stipulated number of residents," he said. "We are hoping the court's judges will bear this fact in mind."

Last year, the Bandung court overturned a decision by the mayor of Depok to revoke a building permit to build an HKBP church in his municipality.

According to a 2006 joint ministerial decree, a new house of worship must have the backing of at least 90 percent of local residents of the same faith and 60 percent of local residents of different religions.

For nearly 10 years, members of the Filadelfia HKBP held services in homes of the congregation. In 2007, the group collected enough money to purchase a plot of land in Jejalen Jaya subdistrict where they would build their church.

However, construction never began because the Bekasi regent ignored their request for a construction permit for more than a year.

In October 2009, after securing permission from the Jejalen Jaya subdistrict head to hold services on their empty land, the Christian group built an 8-by-10-meter semi-permanent building to store service items.

However, the congregation was met by protests from residents who claimed the congregation had no right to practice their faith there.