A Protestant congregation in Bogor, which has been forced to hold services on the street after its half-finished church was sealed by the city administration in April, said it would soon submit a formal complaint to the United Nations.
Ujang Tanusaputra, chairman of the GKI Yasmin Bogor congregation, said on Wednesday that after years of frustration in dealing with the authorities in Indonesia, it would approach the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom.
According to Ujang, the congregation, which has more than 300 members, has struggled against the local administration for nine years to secure a permit to allow it to build a church at its 1,720-square-meter property in West Bogor.
He said he believed that the church site had been sealed off in March because of protests by a group of religious hard-liners calling itself the Communication Forum for Indonesian Muslims (Forkami).
Ujang said the church had exhausted all legal possibilities, including filing official complaints with the Bogor administration, the West Java provincial government as well as the police. The church had even brought the case to the State Administrative Court in both Jakarta and Bandung, and both courts had ruled in favor of the church, he said.
But Ujang said its efforts had been “abused and ignored” by the authorities in Bogor.
The Human Rights Working Group said it would facilitate the complaint to the UN.
“We are trying to get a UN special rapporteur to come to Indonesia to look at the case,” said Hirim Nurliana, a program officer for the group.
But she admitted that such a process would be an uphill battle, as the UN special rapporteur could only come at the invitation of the government. Nonetheless, the HRWG would lobby the government on GKI Yasmin Bogor’s behalf, she said.
Bonar Tigor Naispospos, of the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, said getting the government to invite the UN delegation would be a tough ask but was “worth a shot.”
He said, however, that if more churches facing similar opposition would take concrete steps like what GKI Yasmin Bogor had done, it would not be impossible for the government to take a stand on the matter.
Bonar said the Bogor case was just one of many violations of religious freedom across the country. This year alone, Setara had noted 10 cases related to objections to non-Muslim groups building places of worship, he said.
Late last year, the Wahid Institute released a report into religious freedom that found 35 cases of government violations of religious freedom and 93 instances of community intolerance of churches, with West Java accounting for most of the cases in both categories.
“So far, the government has done very little in resolving these cases,” Bonar said.
The HRWG’s Hirim said that even if the UN special rapporteur were allowed to investigate the case, it would not mean that punitive measures would be taken against the perpetrators.
But Bonar said that even if the recommendations of the special rapporteur did not eventuate in sanctions, it would put pressure on the government finally to take action.
Bonar said that the majority of residents near the church site in Bogor had no objections with its construction, but the administration had been bullied into opposing it by protests from what he labeled as small and intolerant groups.
He even argued that it was very likely that these groups were mobile and responsible for similar protests in other areas. Local authorities, he said, were reluctant to take action against these groups because they needed them for their political support during regional elections.
Ujang Tanusaputra, chairman of the GKI Yasmin Bogor congregation, said on Wednesday that after years of frustration in dealing with the authorities in Indonesia, it would approach the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Religious Freedom.
According to Ujang, the congregation, which has more than 300 members, has struggled against the local administration for nine years to secure a permit to allow it to build a church at its 1,720-square-meter property in West Bogor.
He said he believed that the church site had been sealed off in March because of protests by a group of religious hard-liners calling itself the Communication Forum for Indonesian Muslims (Forkami).
Ujang said the church had exhausted all legal possibilities, including filing official complaints with the Bogor administration, the West Java provincial government as well as the police. The church had even brought the case to the State Administrative Court in both Jakarta and Bandung, and both courts had ruled in favor of the church, he said.
But Ujang said its efforts had been “abused and ignored” by the authorities in Bogor.
The Human Rights Working Group said it would facilitate the complaint to the UN.
“We are trying to get a UN special rapporteur to come to Indonesia to look at the case,” said Hirim Nurliana, a program officer for the group.
But she admitted that such a process would be an uphill battle, as the UN special rapporteur could only come at the invitation of the government. Nonetheless, the HRWG would lobby the government on GKI Yasmin Bogor’s behalf, she said.
Bonar Tigor Naispospos, of the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, said getting the government to invite the UN delegation would be a tough ask but was “worth a shot.”
He said, however, that if more churches facing similar opposition would take concrete steps like what GKI Yasmin Bogor had done, it would not be impossible for the government to take a stand on the matter.
Bonar said the Bogor case was just one of many violations of religious freedom across the country. This year alone, Setara had noted 10 cases related to objections to non-Muslim groups building places of worship, he said.
Late last year, the Wahid Institute released a report into religious freedom that found 35 cases of government violations of religious freedom and 93 instances of community intolerance of churches, with West Java accounting for most of the cases in both categories.
“So far, the government has done very little in resolving these cases,” Bonar said.
The HRWG’s Hirim said that even if the UN special rapporteur were allowed to investigate the case, it would not mean that punitive measures would be taken against the perpetrators.
But Bonar said that even if the recommendations of the special rapporteur did not eventuate in sanctions, it would put pressure on the government finally to take action.
Bonar said that the majority of residents near the church site in Bogor had no objections with its construction, but the administration had been bullied into opposing it by protests from what he labeled as small and intolerant groups.
He even argued that it was very likely that these groups were mobile and responsible for similar protests in other areas. Local authorities, he said, were reluctant to take action against these groups because they needed them for their political support during regional elections.
