Indonesian Church Reports Defiant Mayor to National Police


Bogor official defies Supreme Court, revokes building permit; Christians kept from worship site.

JAKARTA, Indonesia, April 1 (CDN) — A month that saw the Bogor city mayor defying a Supreme Court decision granting a building permit for a church in Bogor, West Java culminated in police turning away those seeking to worship – and church leaders today filing a police complaint on the mayor with National Police.

Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto issued a decree revoking the building permit for the Christian Church of Indonesia (GKI) in Yasmin Park on March 11, citing unrest among local Muslims and charging the church with having lied about obtaining area residents’ approval when the permit was originally processed. Bogor city officials have also decided to try purchasing the land where the church meets.

Church leaders and rights groups scoffed at the city’s claims and its attempt to remove the church from the area after years of protests from Islamic groups. At a press conference last month, Bona Sigalingging, spokesperson for the GKI Yasmin church, read a statement in which the church and 12 interfaith and rights organizations rejected the mayor’s decree.

“The mayor of Bogor has publically lied and twisted the facts, which are both crimes and public moral failures,” Sigalingging said.

When GKI Yasmin representatives checked the city’s claims of a document with false signatures of area residents approving the church, they found such a document had never been submitted; it did not appear in the application file.

“The entire building permit file had been submitted in 2005, and there have never been any additions,” Sigalingging said, adding that the mayor was rash in issuing the baseless decree. “The reasons [for revoking the church permit] are clearly contrived and unfactual.”

He said the decree not only contravened the 1945 Constitution but was also a violation of law.

“The mayoral decree was [directly] opposed to the court decision that the building permit was legal and binding,” he said. “We also request that the mayor rescind Mayoral Decree No. 645.45-137/2011 regarding the revocation of the GKI Yasmin building permit and recognize the court decision that the building permit is legal and binding.”

Supporting the GKI Yasmin church were 12 interfaith organizations: The Wahid Institute, the Human Right Working Group (HRWG), the Setara Institute for Democracy and Peace, the Legal Aid Institute (LBH) Jakarta, the Commission on the Lost and Victims of Oppression, the Fellowship of Indonesian Churches, Indonesian Conference on Religion and Peace, the Sinode of the Christian Church of West Java, the Indonesia Legal Research Center, the National Diversity Alliance, the Legal Aid Foundation of Indonesia and the Gusdurian Forum.

Church lawyers today filed a complaint on the Bogor mayor with the National Police detective unit in response to a statement Budiarto made yesterday (March 31) to newspaper Radar Bogor that attorney Jayadi Damanik described as a threat, The Jakarta Post reported.

Citing a report from kompas.com, the Post quoted Damanik as saying, “We believe Diani Budiarto has committed unpleasant conduct, issuing threats of violence. We think the police need to deal with this.”

The mayor had called for action against the church if it insisted on standing by the Supreme Court ruling granting its building permit, according to the Post. It also reported that Damanik said the church had sent a legal representative to the Home Ministry to report the Bogor mayor for overstepping his duties.

Budiarto was not immediately available for comment.

 

Blockaded Church

On March 13, some 200 police officers blockaded the church, lining each side of KH Abdullah Bin Nuh Street in Bogor under the pretext that they were preventing clashes with about 20 Muslim protestors, church leaders said.

Authorities set up barricades and questioned every person who wished to go to the church location. Compass observed them turning away several GKI members carrying Bibles and heading toward the worship venue. Police parked nine cars and trucks along the fence in front of worship site – the congregation has been worshipping on a strip of land between the road and a fence – in order to keep the congregation out. A vehicle with a water cannon was parked about 500 meters from the site.

Eventually the congregation realized that they could not worship there and left.

The previous Sunday, March 6, the congregation had been able to open the lock that the city had placed on its church building on April 10, 2010. After pushing and shoving between police and church members, the congregation was able to enter and hold a one-hour service led by GKI Yasmin Pastor Ujang Tanusuputra.

As the service was taking place, Bogor Police Chief Nugroho Slamet Wibowo ordered GKI Yasmin church lawyer Damanik and the congregation to stop the service. Wibowo suggested they shift to the Harmony Building, some 500 meters away, in order to avoid clashes with 2,000 Muslim demonstrators outside the mayor’s office whom Wibowo said would be arriving.

Citing the court ruling that declared the congregation could worship at the church site, Damanik declined.

The worship service finished peacefully, and the congregation happily departed. The predicted 2,000 Muslim protestors failed to materialize.

The next day, Bogor city officials invited GKI leaders to discuss the conflict, and the church representatives were accompanied by the LBH Jakarta, the HRWG, a representative of the Wahid Institute, the Interfaith Society and others. In the meeting, Bogor officials announced that the city was revoking the building permit and buying the disputed land.

“Upon hearing this, the GKI rejected the sale and reminded the Bogor government to obey the Supreme Court’s decision,” said Fatmawati Hugo, a member of the GKI legal team.

On March 12, GKI representatives met with police at the Giant Shopping Mall in Yasmin Park, where authorities ordered the church not to take unilateral action.

The police also guaranteed that firm action would be taken against anyone who tried to lock the GKI Yasmin site, but, ironically, that night at 11:30, policemen accompanied members of the Public Order Agency as they padlocked the gate to the GKI Yasmin church, Hugo said.

About 20 church members, mostly women, could only look on with sadness, he said.

“It’s odd that the police accompanied those who locked [the gate] rather than obeying the law and stopping the sealing,” Hugo said.

A few minutes later, at 12:05 a.m., police issued an ultimatum: All persons and vehicles were to clear the area in front of the church. A tow truck arrived and approached a member’s car parked in front of the gate.

“The church members chose to stay and sang several Christian songs,” said Hugo.

Police officers advanced and tried to take congregation members by force. The women were prepared to be arrested, but efforts to detain them ended when a GKI lawyer asked for reasons for the arrests and for arrest warrants. Church members stayed and unrolled mats so that they could hold a part of the roadside strip for the 8 a.m. worship service. About 15 prayed and sang songs through the night.

Around 4:30 a.m., more police arrived. A mobile brigade commanded by West Bogor Police Chief Hida mobilized to force out those on the side of the road; the crowd dispersed in the face of fully armed police.

“Because they were terrorized, they abandoned the roadside strip,” Hugo said.

After clearing the area, police blockaded 500 meters of KH Abdullah Bin Nuh Street at about 7 a.m., using six truckloads of mobile police and an armored car. They had used the same tactic on Dec. 26, 2010, to prevent the congregation from a Christmas service.

At 7:30 a.m., about 20 Muslims unrolled banners at a corner near the Giant Shopping Mall charging the GKI Yasmin church with deception. “Hard-heads, want to build an illegal church here? Step over our dead bodies first,” read one banner.

The congregation held a short worship service at 8:30 a.m. in the home of a nearby member.

Report from Compass Direct News
http://www.compassdirect.org

LAOS: OFFICIALS ANNOUNCE BAN ON CHRISTIANITY IN VILLAGE


Chief warns Christians to worship only local spirits or lose homes.

DUBLIN, July 16 (Compass Direct News) – Following the confiscation of livestock from Christian families earlier this month, officials in a village in Laos on Saturday (July 11) called a special meeting for all residents and announced that they had “banned the Christian faith in our village.”

The chief of Katin village, along with village security, social and religious affairs officials, warned all 53 Christian residents that they should revert to worshiping local spirits in accordance with Lao tradition or risk losing all village rights and privileges – including their livestock and homes, according to advocacy group Human Rights Watch for Lao Religious Freedom (HRWLRF).

The Katin village leader also declared that spirit worship was the only acceptable form of worship in the community, HRWLRF reported. Katin village is in Ta Oih district, Saravan Province.

The previous Sunday (July 5), officials and residents confiscated one pig each from nine Christian families and slaughtered the animals in an effort to force them to renounce their faith. Officials said the seizure of the pigs – each worth the equivalent of six weeks’ salary for an average laborer in the area – was punishment for ignoring the order to abandon Christianity. (See “Officials Seize, Slaughter Christians’ Livestock,” July 10.)

According to HRWLRF, the chief’s order clearly contravened Article 6 and Article 30 of the Lao Constitution, which guarantees the right of Christians and other religious minorities to practice the religion of their choice without discrimination or penalty.

In addition, HRWLRF stated that Katin officials had violated Article 53 of the 2003 Law on Local Administration, which requires them to abide by the constitution and other laws and to provide for the safety and well-being of all people living under their care.

Officials in Katin have a history of ignoring constitutional religious freedoms. On July 21, 2008, officials detained 80 Christians in the village after residents seized a Christian identified only as Pew and poured rice wine down his throat, killing him by asphyxiation.

When family members buried Pew and placed a wooden cross on his grave, officials accused them of “practicing the rituals of the enemy of the state” and seized a buffalo and pig from them as a fine.

On July 25, 2008, officials rounded up 17 of the 20 Christian families then living in the village – a total of 80 men, women and children – and detained them in a school compound, denying them food in an effort to force the adults to sign documents renouncing their faith. The other three Christian families in the village at that time had already signed the documents under duress.

As their children grew weaker, 10 families signed the documents and were permitted to return home. The remaining seven families were evicted from the village and settled in an open field nearby, surviving on whatever food sources they could find in the jungle.

Suffering from the loss of their property and livelihoods, however, the seven families eventually recanted their faith and moved back into the village. But over time, some of the Christians began gathering again for prayer and worship.

On Sept. 8, 2008, provincial and district authorities called a meeting in Katin village and asked local officials and residents to respect the religious laws of the nation.

Four days later, however, village officials seized a buffalo worth approximately US$350 from a Christian resident identified only as Bounchu, telling him the animal would be returned only if he renounced his faith. When he refused, they slaughtered the animal in the village square and distributed the meat to non-Christian residents.

Report from Compass Direct News

EGYPT: CUSTODY BATTLES BRING ISLAMIC LAW INTO QUESTION


Human rights advocates look to international arena for help.

ISTANBUL, November 24 (Compass Direct News) – Egyptian human rights workers are looking to international bodies for support against Muslim judges who use sharia (Islamic law) to undermine custody rights of Christian mothers.

Despite provisions such as Egyptian law’s Article 20, which dictates that minors should remain with their mother until age 15, judges consistently rule in favor of Muslim fathers in custody disputes with Christian mothers. Islamist judges typically resort to Article 2 of the Egyptian Constitution, which states that “principles of Islamic law are the principal source of legislation.”

Sharia-based decisions that rule contrary to Egyptian statutory law have led the Egyptian Initiative for Personal Rights (EIPR), an independent human rights organization, to protest before the African Commission on Human and Peoples Rights (ACHPR). The ACHPR was formed by the African Union to oversee the implementation of its Charter on Human and People’s Rights.

An investigation, decision and recommendation by the African Commission to the Egyptian government would lend considerable weight to the EIPR’s efforts to enforce Egyptian Personal Status Law, which states explicitly the mother’s right to custody of her children until they reach age 15.

The EIPR’s complaint before the African Commission accuses the Egyptian government of violating the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which Egypt ratified in 1984, the human rights organization said in a Nov. 10 statement. The EIPR referred to the case of 13-year-old twins Andrew and Mario Medhat Ramses, whom an appeals court awarded to their father Medhat Ramses Labib on Sept. 24 after a custody battle.

“The government’s treatment of the boys’ mother, Kamilia Lotfy Gaballah, constituted discrimination based on her religion and violated her right to equal protection before the law,” the EIPR stated. “The case also charges that the government violated the two boys’ right to freedom of religion and contravened the state’s legal obligation to protect child rights.”

The boys’ father, Labib, converted to Islam in 1999 after divorcing Gaballah to marry another woman. In 2006 Labib altered the official religious status of the boys and later applied for custody.

“Obviously in this custody decision, it is a flagrant disregard of the Personal Status Law, which ensures custody for the mother until the children are 15 years old,” said Hossam Bahgat of the EIPR. “In this case the judiciary chose to ignore statutory law and apply their own interpretation of sharia.”

The long-running case of the twins exemplifies the problem but is in no way unique. Sisters Ashraqat Gohar, 12, and Maria Gohar, 8, were taken from their Christian mother in January and placed in the custody of their Muslim father, Wafiq Gohar, despite his criminal record and the 12-year-old’s claims that he is an alcoholic.

The court ruling referred to Wafiq Gohar’s fears that “[the girls] would cherish a religion other than Islam, eat foods that are banned in Islam and go to church” as determining factors in their decision.

“It is a big problem we are facing in Egypt,” said Naguib Gobrail, president of the Egyptian Union of Human Rights Organizations. “The decision of the court clearly stated that according to Article 2, the main source [of legislation] is sharia, so the judge cannot apply the natural law.”

More recently, 3-year-old Barthenia Rezqallah of Tanta, near Cairo, remains in her father’s custody, despite a court order that she be returned to her mother pending a final verdict. Police have turned a blind eye to the court order out of fears that the child will practice Christianity rather than Islam, said Gobrail.

Gobrail said that international pressure may be the solution.

“Maybe a connection with someone of international character connecting with President [Hosni] Mubarak is the only way,” he said, “because he has the authority to give orders to the National Assembly to issue a law to make things equal between Muslims and Copts, especially for the children.”  

Report from Compass Direct News