Jakarta – The Congregation of Batak Protestant Churches (HKBP) Filadelfia branch will file a report to the National Police headquarters in Jakarta following Thursday's mob attack against their house of worship in Tambun, Bekasi, West Java.

Church attorney Judianto Simanjuntak said Friday that hundreds of people blocked the church congregation as they headed toward their church to commemorate the ascension of Jesus Christ on Thursday morning. "A similar attack occurred on May 6," he said as quoted by tempo.co.

In addition to these attacks, the lawyer revealed that HKBP Filadelfia's Rev. Palti Panjaitan had received a death threat on April 15, which the church will also report to the National Police. "We will go to the National Police headquarters on Saturday morning," he said, adding that the congregation will also ask for protection.

Jakarta Police spokesman Sr. Comr. Rikwanto was quoted by tempo.co late on Thursday as saying that the police were not trying to disperse the mob that threw water on the church followers on Thursday. "We were just trying to avoid riots," he said.

He was responding to a query over police action in dealing with a group of intolerant people who interrupted the Filadelfia church congregation on Thursday morning.

Palti told The Jakarta Post that that the crowd had thrown "urine, sewage and frogs" at the worshippers, some of which also hit policemen who were protecting parish members from the mob.

The church and local residents have been involved in a building permit dispute for several years. Palti said that the church had already obtained the necessary legal paperwork, claiming that the Bekasi administration's decision to close the church in 2010 was overturned by the Bandung State Administrative Court in West Java in 2011. (asa/swd)