Police personnel have been called in to protect the construction site of the Santa Clara Church in North Bekasi, West Java, following continued protests from local hard-line groups that oppose the project.

Santa Clara parish pastor Rev. Raymundus Sianipar said that several of police personnel were now guarding the construction site, and that management of the congregation would stay in touch with the authorities to monitor the situation.

The church is being built on a 6,500-square-meter plot of land in Harapan Baru subdistrict and will be open in time for this year’s Christmas service in December.

“The construction will continue and hopefully we will finish by October or November this year,” Raymundus told The Jakarta Post on Sunday.

Muslim hard-liners clashed on Friday with police officers during a protest against the construction of Santa Clara.

Protests against the construction of the church have continued although the Bekasi city administration has already issued a permit for the project.

The protesters called on the Bekasi administration to revoke the permit for the church, arguing that when completed, the church would become a command center for Christian proselytizing among the local majority Muslim population.

Bekasi Mayor Rahmat Effendi gave the green light for the project after the congregation met all the administrative requirements, including collecting support from more than 60 locals in the vicinity of the church’s planned location.

In what could be seen as a move to guarantee the safety of the church construction, Jakarta Police chief Insp. Gen. Mochamad Iriawan visited the construction site on Saturday.

During the visit, Iriawan discussed details regarding the construction project, including the issue of the permit and security problems.

Jakarta Police spokesperson Sr. Comr. Argo Yuwono said that police would hold mediation between relevant parties to further ease the tension.

Separately, Religious Affairs Minister Lukman Hakim Saifuddin said there was no reason for anybody to obstruct the construction of a church if its congregation had obtained a permit.

Lukman challenged those who were against the construction of Santa Clara to take it to court if they could find evidence that the church’s permit was issued through illegal means.

He also said that the Bekasi administration needed to deliver an explanation regarding details of the construction permit.

“The city administration needs to give an explanation on this issue. I hope that this will be settled soon,” the minister said in a statement.

Mayor Rahmat, who was recently given an award for his protection of minority groups, has repeatedly defended the church construction.

“I’d rather be shot in the head than revoke the permit, which I issued because the church has met all legal requirements,” he said in Jakarta on March 17, when receiving the award from the National Commission on Human Rights (Komnas HAM).

Catholics in North Bekasi have been working for nearly two decades to secure a permit that would allow them to start the construction of the first-ever Catholic Church in the area.

Currently, members of the congregation perform their Sunday services in a shop house, which accommodates fewer than 200 people, while the total number of Catholics in the area is more than 9,400.

Some members of the congregation have had to stand in the open air in front of the shop house for the weekly services as the building does not have the capacity to accommodate them.

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