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Indonesia: Muslims demonstrators damage, disrupt two churches

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Muslim protestors blocked worship services from taking place at two separate churches in northern Indonesia earlier this month, Morning Star News (MSN) reports. While Christianity is legal under the Indonesian Constitution, the Muslim-majority country ranks 33rd on the US Open Doors World Watch List 2023 of the top 50 countries where Christians are persecuted.

On August 9, around 30 Muslim protestors In Riau Islands Province used hammers and clubs to break huge holes in the walls of the church building under construction that belongs to the Pentecostal Mission Church in Indonesia, MSN reports. Church leaders filed a complaint about the damages with Riau Islands Police, and the chairman of the Association of Indonesian Evangelical Churches and Institutions, Pastor Jimmy Loho, condemned the destruction as “anarchistic and unacceptable,” according to a local media report, MSN said.

Three days earlier, in nearby North Sumatra Province, Muslims in Tanjung Morawa village on August 6 had protested against the Mawar Sharon Church congregation using a warehouse for its Sunday service, MSN reports. The protestors demanded that the congregation stop their planned construction of a worship building at a nearby site, according to a video posted by Aktualonline.com, MSN reports.

“The video shows the protestors with banners stating, “We, the residents of Sub-village 1, Tanjung Morawa village, refuse non-Muslims’ activities in this village,” and, “The residents of Sub-village 1, Tanjung Morawa Village, sternly refuse worship activities that are in violation of government regulations,” MSN said.

“If a church is seen to be preaching and spreading the gospel [in Indonesia], they soon run into opposition from Islamic extremist groups, especially in rural areas,” the Open Doors international Christian advocacy group reports in a website statement. “In some regions of Indonesia, non-traditional churches struggle to get permission for church buildings, with the authorities often ignoring their paperwork.”