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| Indonesian Christians crying while their church was being demolished by the Islamists' bulldozers. |
The congregation of Bekasi’s
beleaguered HKBP Taman Sari church huddled close, forming a barrier between
their church and the idling bulldozer sent to demolish their house of worship
on Thursday.
They sang tearful Batak hymns in the
afternoon heat, wailing between the verses, as church member Megarenta Sihite
shouted at the officers from the Bekasi District Public Order Agency (Satpol
PP).
“What is our sin, sir?” she screamed.
“Is it a sin to pray? Show us where our mistake is. I thought this is a
democratic country. Please, Mr. President, we were born here in this country
with five religions. We never did anything bad to their houses of worship. Why
are they doing this to us?”
The Bekasi district administration
issued an order to demolish the church on Wednesday, arguing that it was built
in violation of a local bylaw requiring all houses of worship to secure a
building permit before construction.
Church leaders said they had gathered
89 signatures of approval from local residents needed to acquire a permit, but
were derailed when the urban ward chief refused to sign the document, claiming
that most of the signatures were faked.
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| Christians trying to stop the Excavator demolishing their church. |
The congregation pushed back on
Thursday in an hours-long standoff between churchgoers and Satpol PP officers.
The dispute peaked as pastors and an attorney from the Jakarta Legal Aid
Foundation presented Dikdik Astra, the Satpol PP chief, with documents claiming
the demolition order had violated Indonesian law. Dikdik dismissed the
argument.
“We received orders from the district
chief [Neneng Hasanah Yasin],” he said. “We only want to obey what the district
chief said. Whether it is legal or not, that is her business.”
The church was demolished amid cheers
of “Allahu Akbar” (“God is great”) from members of the hard-line Taman Sari
Islamic People’s Forum (FUIT) who had gathered outside the building. Pastor
Adven Leonard Nababan accused the Satpol PP of caving to pressure from
hard-line groups. Dikdik denied the allegation.
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| Excavator demolishing the so-called illegal Christian church |
Hard-liner support, police inaction
The road leading to HKBP Taman Sari was
flanked by members of local Islamic hard-line groups Thursday morning. Men
dressed in white robes flew flag bearing the names of the Islamic Defenders
Front (FPI) as they shouted demands into megaphones a half-kilometer from the
church.
“It’s not a church,” Zuhri, of the FUIT, said. “It’s an illegal
building. So don’t mistake this as a religious conflict. It’s not a war between
Christians and Muslims. It is not a church at all. It is just an ordinary
illegal building.”
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| Islamist hardliners demanding to demolish the Christian church. |
The church has held regular services in
a small bamboo structure since 1999, Pastor Adven said. But as the congregation
ballooned to more than 600 people, Sunday services spilled out into the
church’s wooded lot. “The church could not accommodate all of them,” Adven
said. “We were afraid that the building would collapse, so we planned to build
a new building to worship comfortably.”
Their troubles began when the church
broke ground on the expansion. Islamic hard-liners rallied against the
construction, holding a large demonstration in January demanding that the
government shutter the church.
“The opposition from the hard-line
groups started on January 15 with a rally of some 750 people,” Adven said.
“After that, the process to get the building permit was not continued.”
District chief Neneng ordered the Satpol PP to close the church on March 7. The
congregation was told to demolish the partially constructed building
themselves. The church refused.
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| Church altar just before the Islamists' demolition. |
“Dismantling this building will be
illegal,” she said. “You should have letter from the district chief to
dismantle the building and a long investigation process as stipulated by the
law. Do you have the letter?”
Dikdik claimed he had the necessary
documentation, but the letter he had was an order to seal off the building
listed under the name of Markus Sihite, and not an order to dismantle the
church. “See, you have no rights to do this,” Yunita said. “This is a church,
not a building owned by Markus Sihite. If you want to knock it down, at least
get the right letter.”
Sumarwoto, for his part, washed his
hands of the case, telling the churchgoers that his officers were only on
location to prevent a brawl between Islamic hard-liners and churchgoers. “It’s
not my business,” he said. “It’s the Bekasi district government and Satpol PP.
I am only here to secure the place and prevent a clash between residents and
church members.”
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| Indonesian Islamist police supervising the demolition of the Christian church. |
A community pulls together
The HKBP Taman Sari congregation is the
latest Christian group in West Java to face opposition from locals over their
presence in largely Muslim communities. The GKI Yasmin congregation in Bogor
has been locked out of its church since 2008 by the municipal authorities, in
direct violation of two Supreme Court rulings and an order by the Indonesian
Ombudsman to allow it back in.
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| Another Christian church in Jakarta is now just a pile of debris after Islamists' demolition. |
Bogor officials’ initial pretext for
revoking the church’s permit was that the signatures required to obtain it were
fake. It now says that its refusal to abide by the rulings of the highest court
in the land is based on residents’ opposition to the church.
The HKBP Filadelfia congregation is the
victim of a similar injustice. Since 2007, its members have been forced to
worship on the street outside the church in Bekasi as district authorities
continue to deny the church a permit.
The Home Affairs Ministry, which
exercises authority over regional heads, has repeatedly claimed that regional
autonomy renders the central government powerless to force the Bogor and Bekasi
administrations to comply with the Supreme Court rulings. The two congregations
now hold joint services every Sunday on the street outside the State Palace in
Jakarta, to draw the president’s attention to their plight.
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| Indonesian Christians crying and praying. |
Back at the site of the HKBP Taman Sari
church, two young girls wept as the dust began to settle on the collapsed
walls. “Why are they so mean?” one girl cried. “Why did they have to demolish
it? Where will we go for Sunday school?” Women wailed and collapsed in fits
while a single woman stood atop a pile of rubble, collecting bricks one by one
to reset the Indonesian flag. She placed a tin sign bearing the church’s name
alongside the Merah Putih before walking off.
Adven, the church’s pastor, addressed
the crowd. “Don’t cry,” he told them. “Your tears will turn to victory.
Remember, this is a test of your faith.” Adven said he would continue leading
the congregation members in worship at the same location, because of the lack
of nearby churches.
The nearest HKBP church is 15
kilometers away, in Jakarta. “We will still keep worshiping in this place,” he
said. “It has been two weeks that we’ve held
services outside the church after they sealed off the building.”
“Time flies, and soon we’ll celebrate
Good Friday,” said Markus Simamora, a member of the congregation. “No matter
how many times they demolish the church, we’ll rebuild it.” Adven led the
congregation in a prayer thanking Satpol PP and the Islamic hard-liners for
their actions. “Satpol PP officers and members of the Islamic group, we thank
you for what you have done. May God bless you abundantly,” he said. “Amen,” the
crowd responded.
Nia Pandiangan, a congregation member,
accused the central and local governments of being unable to protect their right
to worship. “But we won’t hate them,” she said. “As children of God, we were
told to love, not to hate. So we’ll pray that God will soften their hearts.”
(Burma should be doling out similar Indonesian-styled treatment to the illegally-built mosques all over Burma. Most new mosques in Burma are basically no mosques
at all. These ugly fortress-like Saudi-funded buildings are just illegal buildings
and Burmese-Buddhists have water-tight legal rights to demolish all those
illegal mosques like what Indonesian Muslims are happily doing to the so-called
illegally-constructed Christian churches in their Islamist Indonesia.)
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| Indonesian police ready to remove Christians from the site. |
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| Illegal-Mosque demolition Burmese style. |