The Jakarta Post, Jakarta Sun, 04/08/2012
Out of fear of harassment from radical groups, around 60 members of the beleaguered GKI Taman Yasmin Protestant church congregation held a clandestine Easter service at one of its member’s houses in Bogor on Sunday.
The worshipers, whose church has been sealed by the Bogor administration for more than two years, spread the invitation to the service among church members and a few journalists but withheld the information from the police, who they regard as powerless in safeguarding them.
Bona Sigalingging, the church’s spokesman, said that the church-goers took a lesson from last year’s Christmas celebration, where they were disrupted by dozens of hard-liners from the Reform Movement (Garis) and the Muslim Communications Forum (Forkami).
“The police were there, but they did not do much to help us. Ever since, we have found no point in telling the police about our activities,” Bona said.
Bona said that limiting the information only to worshipers and journalists was the best way to conduct religious activities without interruption or intimidation.
“For this Easter service, we just announced the location on Saturday,” he said.
Since Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto suspended the church’s building permit in 2008, the church’s members have moved from one house to another to perform their religious activities.
Bona said that some worshipers could not bear the uncertain situation and had decided to move to other churches. “We used to have 600 members who regularly came to our church. Now we have only 70 [active] members,” Bona said
zo 8 apr 2012 - 19:07
