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Jakarta Post

Uncertain future for evicted Christian institutions

Religious minority groups whose rights have been breached intend to leave their forcibly abandoned properties so that they serve as monuments of human rights violations

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Sat, September 3, 2011

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Uncertain future for evicted Christian institutions

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eligious minority groups whose rights have been breached intend to leave their forcibly abandoned properties so that they serve as monuments of human rights violations.

“We will leave the buildings just as they were, to serve as reminders of the violence against minority groups by hard-liners and by the government,” said Rev. Erwin Marbun of HKBP church referring to some houses of worship from which the congregations have been evicted.

Erwin said that some Christian congregations in Greater Jakarta who had been forcibly evicted could do nothing on the lands they legally owned.

Erwin was the minister of the HKBP Getsemani in Bekasi, one of the churches which were forcibly evicted in 2008 by Islamic hard-line groups claiming to represent local residents. Other Bekasi churches also evicted and with uncertain futures, include the Indonesian Evangelical Christian Church (Gekindo) and the HKBP Ciketing.

Legal adviser for the HKBP Ciketing, Saor Siagian, told The Jakarta Post that the congregation’s human rights had been seriously violated as it was not allowed to do anything on the land it legally owned.

“The congregation agreed to be relocated in order to avoid further violence and also because the government had promised to help find a new location and issue a permit for a new church,” he said, adding that there were doubts whether the government would fulfill the promise.

The Jakarta Christian Communication Forum recorded that 16 out of 47 evicted churches across the country in 2010 were located in Greater Jakarta.

Jeirry Sumampow of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia told the Post that church relocations marked the government’s failure to protect equal rights for all citizens.

“The state takes the perpetrators’ side by fulfilling their demands to relocate the churches while it should protect the victims,” Jeirry said.

“Christian congregations rarely fight for their rights as persistently as GKI Taman Yasmin. Fighting against discrimination needs a lot of energy and most of the times results in internal conflicts within the congregation,” he said.

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.

The Bogor Mayor, Diani Budiarto, has refused to reopen the church he sealed last year despite the Supreme Court issuing a decree requiring him to do so.

In addition to some churches being evicted, a Christian theological seminary in East Jakarta also faced similar problems.

After relocating several times since the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) violently forced their removal in July 2008, the students of the STT Setia seminary can now study safely at their new location although the building needs major repairs.

The building, a former synthetic-leather factory, is better than nothing for them four years after being evicted from their previous location at Kampung Pulo in East Jakarta.

STT Setia rector Rev. Matheus Mangentang told the Post that the seminary decided in December 2010 to buy the approximately 20,000 square-meter property, worth Rp 30 billion (US$3.51 million), in the industrial neighborhood of Kalideres, West Jakarta.

“The government promised to help us find a new location for our school yet nothing happened so we decided to find the place ourselves,” said Matheus.

STT Setia’s former campus now belongs to the Jakarta Administration Agency.

Jakarta Cemeteries and Parks Agency head Catharina Suryowati told the Post that the City Administration had bought the property and planned to build interactive parks on the land in 2012. (msa)

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