Islamic student group takes GKI Yasmin church dispute to Vatican

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Sun, 09/11/2011

Members of the executive board of the Islamic Student Association (PB HMI) submitted on Saturday a document detailing the dispute between the GKI Yasmin church and the Bogor administration to the Vatican's president of the papal council for interreligious dialogue, Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran.

The case document was submitted to the Holy See to show that many religious disputes in Indonesia were in fact engineered or fueled by political parties.

During the meeting with Tauran, PB HMI secretary-general Basri Dodo said that Pancasila had encouraged Indonesians to live peacefully.

However, Dodo said, a recent string of tensions and conflicts involving religious believers suggested that the main motive behind all of the tensions and conflicts was political interests. Dodo did not name the parties whom he said had attempted to fan the flames of the conflicts.

The beleaguered GKI Taman Yasmin church in Bogor, West Java, has been threatened with eviction by local residents as well as by the Bogor administration. Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto has refused to reopen the church after sealing it last year despite a Supreme Court ruling that ordered him to open it.

Dodo was accompanied by PB HMI chairman Noer Fajrieansyah, head of international relations Muhammad Makmoen Abdullah and deputy secretary-general Muhammad Chairul Basyar.

The head of the delegation, Putut Prabantoro, who also helped mediate the meeting between PB HMI and the Vatican, said in a release on Saturday that the meeting would discuss pluralism and interreligious dialogue.


( By bringing this to the Vatican what do they hope to acheive? Do they think that local government (Bogor) is going to bow down to the Vatican if this local government isn't even giving heed to a ruling on that subject made by the Indonesian High Court!) siK.