Tag: Java

Indonesian clerics dispute president’s ‘world statesman’ award

May 10, 2013 Indonesia Aceh, Banten, Bekasi, Bogor, GKI Yasmin, HKBP Filadelfia, Jakarta, Java, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

According to the Appeal of Conscience Foundation, Indonesia President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is a world statesman who promotes religious tolerance. According to the Clergy Forum of Jakarta, Banten and West Java in Indonesia, Yudhoyono turns a blind eye to oppression of minority religions in his own country. The forum on . . . Read More

Indonesian pastor freed

April 30, 2013 Indonesia Churches, Indonesia, Islamic Defenders Front, Java, Pentecostals

Pastor Bernard Maukar has been released from prison. The Indonesia Pentecostal Church leader from Mekargalih village in West Java was jailed for three months in January for operating a church without a permit. Maukar denied the charges against him, but later told Open Doors International – an organisation that supports . . . Read More

Church walls go up, then torn down by local government

March 25, 2013 Indonesia Bekasi, Bogor, Churches, HKBP Filadelfia, Java, Pentecostals, Sumatra

Cheers went up as a backhoe tore down the barely finished walls of the Batak Protestant Church near Jakarta, Indonesia on Thursday. The pile of rubble that remained was only the latest setback to Christians trying to retain a toehold in the world’s most populous Muslim country. The church, in . . . Read More

Uptick in church closures, attacks in Indonesia

June 5, 2012 Indonesia Aceh, Banten, Bekasi, Churches, Indonesia, Jakarta, Java, Pentecostals, Southeast Asia, Sumatra, Tangerang

The number of violations of Christians’ religious rights in Indonesia reached 40 in the first five months of the year, nearly two-thirds the amount of anti-Christian actions in all of last year, according to the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum. The Christian minority in Indonesia faced 64 cases of violations of . . . Read More

Islamist mob throws urine on church in Indonesia

May 23, 2012 Indonesia Bekasi, GKI Yasmin, Indonesia, Java, Muhammadiyah, Nahdlatul Ulama

No arrests have been made since 600 Islamists hurled bags filled with urine and ditchwater at about 100 members of a church last week and threatened to kill its pastor. Police looked on as the mob attacked the Philadelphia Batak Christian Protestant Church worshipping on the street in Bekasi, near . . . Read More

President sidesteps church controversy

February 23, 2012 Indonesia Bogor, Churches, GKI Yasmin, Indonesia, Java, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

In a defeat for the rule of law in Indonesia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has declined to enforce a Supreme Court ruling that a local government allow a West Java church to worship in its building. The Bogor city government revoked the building permit of the Christian Church of Indonesia . . . Read More

Indonesia: anti-Christian incidents nearly doubled in 2011

January 4, 2012 Indonesia Banten, Bogor, Churches, GKI Yasmin, Indonesia, Jakarta, Java, Nahdlatul Ulama, Pentecostals, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

Acts of violence and intolerance against Christians in Indonesia almost doubled in 2011, with an Islamist campaign to close down churches symbolizing the plight of the religious minority. The Indonesian Protestant Church Union, locally known as PGI, counted 54 acts of violence and other violations against Christians in 2011, up . . . Read More

Indonesian mayor’s defiance ‘shows government’s weakness’

December 19, 2011 Indonesia Bogor, Churches, GKI Yasmin, Indonesia, Java, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono

The Bogor mayor’s refusal to obey a Supreme Court order to restore a congregation’s permit casts doubt on the ability of the Indonesian government to enforce the rule of law, according to a leading rights group. Muslim demonstrators and area police have continued to obstruct the services of the Indonesian . . . Read More

Catching Our Eye