T

he Bekasi administration has decided to halt the construction of Santa Clara Catholic Church in Bekasi, West Java, despite no flaws being found in the administrative documents, following protests from thousands of locals of the majority faith of Islam.

Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi has agreed to conduct a reexamination of the bureaucratic procedures as well as permits and administrative documents.

However, he has confirmed that the applications for the church construction at a 5,000-hectare block in Harapan Baru subdistrict, Bekasi, had followed the required procedures properly. '€œWe have found no flaws in the legal procedures, but we are going through the standard [complaint] procedures to respect both sides,'€ Rahmat said on Wednesday at his office in Bekasi.

Rahmat said that the administration had allowed the aggrieved parties to file a report directly to the Bekasi State Administrative Court if they found any flaws in the documentation.

'€œHowever, I emphasize that I will not revoke the building permit. Non-Muslim residents have the right to a place of worship,'€ he said, adding that non-Musli residents accounted for 250,000 out of the total population of 2.5 million in the city.

Around 2,000 protesters, including representatives from several Mosque Welfare Councils (DKM), the Bekasi Muslim Silaturahim Council (MSUIB), Islamic groups as well as several students of At-Taqwa Islamic boarding school in Ujung Harapan, Bekasi, staged a protest in front of Bekasi administration office on Monday.

They hung banners demanding the construction of the church be stopped, claiming that the church did not have a valid permit, and asked the administration to revoke the building permit and approval for the construction of the church.

According to a 2006 joint ministerial decree, a new house of worship must have the support of at least 90 congregation members and 60 local residents of different faiths, verified by their signature and a copy of their identity cards.

With Muslims making up some 87 percent of the country'€™s population, religious minorities have long seen the decree as a major stumbling block in building their places of worship.

Santa Clara Paroki secretary Rasnius Pasaribu told The Jakarta Post that the church had secured a valid building permit and received no complaints from people living near the church'€™s planned location.

'€œWe have secured support from more than 90 congregation members and 64 local residents of different faiths,'€ he told the Post on Tuesday, adding that it had also been granted permission by the FKUB [Bekasi Interfaith Harmony Forum] and the religious minister.

The FKUB, however, could not be reached for comment.

The church, Rasnius added, had tried for more than 15 years to get a building permit and gone through a long process before the mayor granted it.

Rasnius hoped that the Bekasi administration allowed the construction of the church, which hopes to accommodate the estimated 19,000-strong catholic population in the area. '€œWe will fight for the resumption of the construction. There is no problem with the legal permits. So, there is no reason for it being stopped,'€ he told the Post over the phone. (foy)