The temple was handed over to Gereja Kristen Indonesia at Easter, but some worshipers refuse to use it because it is not located where the building permit was originally granted. According to some, the local government ignored the previous rulings and is trying to win votes for next year’s elections.
Jakarta () – After 15 years of disputes, the Yasmin congregation of the Gereja Kristen Indonesia (GKI), the Indonesian Protestant Church, finally got its own place of worship on Easter Sunday. But the inauguration of the building divided the community, with some faithful refusing to use the new church.
In 2006, the administration of Bogor, West Java province, had issued a building permit (known as Izin Mendirikan Bangunan or IMB) for the construction of a church. However, in March 2011, the local authorities revoked the document due to a wave of protests from radical Muslim groups who claimed that the presence of the temple would disturb the peace of the community.
For this reason, the following year, the mayor of Bogor proposed the construction of the church in West Bogor, a different part of the city than the one Yasmin had initially been granted. A section of the GKI opposed the decision, arguing that giving in to pressure from the local government would set a precedent for minorities, who must already submit to government decisions.
On Easter April 9, Mayor Bima Arya handed over the new complex to Protestant Church leaders, in a ceremony also attended by several high-ranking officials, including the Minister for the Coordination of Political, Legal and of Security, Mahfud Md, the Minister of the Interior, Tito Karnavian, and the president of the National Human Rights Commission, Atnike Nova Sigiro.
The first citizen said that the new church is proof of a “peaceful solution” to a 15-year crisis, but within the GKI Yasmin the fracture deepened between those who are glad to have obtained a place of worship and those who they refuse to use it.
According to some believers, the inauguration of the church should not be considered “the best peaceful solution” by the Bogor authorities, because, according to them, they did not respect the Constitution or Pancasila, the philosophical thought on which the Indonesian state is based. . “Furthermore, they ignored the court ruling that GKI Yasmin should have obtained the complex on the indicated land in the first place and not elsewhere.” Bona Sigalingging, spokesperson for GKI Yasmin, confirmed to that the Bogor administration’s proposal ignored the presence of other Church properties on the land initially chosen for the construction of the new temple.
Others, however, think that the delivery and inauguration of the new church is nothing more than a “political ploy” by government authorities to win votes for next year’s general elections.
