One of the evicted residents, 45-year-old Eva Aryani Effendi, said she and 57 residents of community unit (RW) 11 of the subdistrict had been taking shelter temporarily in Al-Islam Mosque in Tamansari after authorities evicted them and demolished their homes.

They were forcefully evicted on Dec. 12 as the city administration is planning a rumah deret (row houses) project in the area. The eviction led to a clash between security personnel and residents who refused to be relocated.

The rumah deret project began while former Bandung mayor Ridwan Kamil was in office. Ridwan, who currently serves as West Java governor, previously promised there would be no evictions.

“We have asked [Al-Islam’s] DKM [mosque welfare council] if we can reside temporarily on the mosque’s second floor because we don’t have anywhere to take shelter from the weather,” Eva said on Monday.

She added that members of the DKM had granted their request. “We were asked to write a letter to the MUI regarding our request. However, they sent us a letter [ordering us to leave the mosque] before we even sent ours.”

The Bandung Wetan district branch of the MUI issued a letter on Thursday to every mosque welfare council in the area to “return the mosque to its proper function”. The letter was signed by Bandung Wetan MUI chairman Adja Surja and its secretary Dadang Priatna.

The order came following a letter issued by the MUI's Bandung office explaining the proper use of a mosque as a response to a request from a certain group of people. However, it did not mention which group made the request.

The letter issued by the Bandung MUI contains eight points of explanation, which include the origin of the word masjid (mosque), its function as a place of worship, the benefit of a mosque and restricted actions to be done in a mosque.

Eva said the evictees had not yet been able to respond to the MUI’s letter because she and most of the evicted residents were still in Jakarta to legally challenge the eviction.

“One of the possible solutions is that we will build a temporary shelter in front of the mosque,” she said.

Bandung MUI secretary Irfan Safrudin said the letter, although issued by the fatwa commission was only a circular directed to all mosque councils in Bandung.

“There have been requests for an explanation on how to use a mosque, arising from many problems surrounding the usage. The requests are from many mosques, not only the one in Tamansari,” Irfan said.

While saying that there was no suggestion the evictees should be ousted from the mosque, he said a mosque should not be the first choice for people to take shelter.

“It might be comfortable for people to take shelter in a mosque for one day or even two weeks, but how long will this take? A mosque is not a place to sleep,” Irfan said. “There are many good buildings in Bandung to be used for sleeping.”

A mosque should be a neutral place for people to pray. Therefore, people should not bring societal problems into the mosque, he went on to say.

Eva dismissed the council’s concern, saying that the evictees only used Al-Islam mosque’s second floor for sleeping in the evening. She claimed they did not disrupt other people who went to the mosque for praying.

“We keep our children outside the mosque each prayer time. We also clean the place,” she said.

Many parties criticized the eviction, with the West Java Ombudsman saying the forced eviction of Tamansari residents might be legally flawed as the authorities might have violated procedures. Security forces however, had dismissed such criticism, arguing they had carried out the eviction in accordance with the standard procedure. (kuk)

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