Ulma Haryanto – After more than a year of being banned from praying inside their own church by Bogor administration and local militant groups, members of the embattled GKI Yasmin church again turned to the central government for intervention in the case.
They staged another Sunday service in front of the State Palace, vowing to continue holding services there until they were allowed into their church again. "We want to remind the central government about this case, so that they take responsibility," said Dwiyanti Novita Rini, a church spokeswoman.
The central government, she said, should enforce the Supreme Court's decision to allow them to use the church for Sunday mass and other religious activities.
"The president's spokesman once said that the president could not interfere because this was the jurisdiction of the regional government, but this is a matter of religious [rights] and should be under the authority of the central government," she said on Sunday. The congregation stayed in front of the palace until 3 p.m.
National Awakening Party (PKB) lawmaker Lily Wahid, lawyer and human rights activist Todung Mulya Lubis, Andy Yentriyani of the National Commission on Violence Against Women (Komnas Perempuan), the Indonesian Communion of Churches' Gomar Goeltom, deputy secretary general of Nahdlatul Ulama Imdadun Rahmat and pluralist activist Muhammad Guntur Romli also attended the service.
Sunday's service was the congregation's third mass prayers in front of the palace
Imdadun delivered a speech after the prayer, condemning militant groups and saying that "the state has been ruled by radical groups who don't want unity between diverse beliefs to be upheld in the country."
The Supreme Court ruled in 2010 that the Bogor authorities needed to restore the church's permit but the city's mayor, Diani Budiarto, has refused to do so.
The case is one of several cited by activists as a sign that religious intolerance in Indonesia is growing as people become increasingly exposed to fundamentalism.
In an open letter sent to US President Barack Obama recently, the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom called on Obama to speak out against Indonesia's growing religious tensions.
New York-based Human Rights Watch also urged Obama to discuss human-rights issues in Indonesia, including attacks on religious minorities, restrictions on freedom of expression and the lack of accountability of security forces for human rights abuses.