Indonesia

Within one year and without any legal pretext, 17 churches and chapels in the province of Aceh, Indonesia, have been closed under Islamic law.

Crowds cheered as a demolition crew destroyed the newly erected walls of the Batak Protestant Church in the Bekasi district of Jakarta Thursday in yet another setback for Christians trying to survive in the planet’s most populous Muslim nation.

Protestants from two officially restricted churches in West Java gave 6,000 postcards to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, asking him for permission to worship in their own buildings for Christmas.

The new mayor of Tasikmalaya in West Java, Indonesia, has vowed to implement Shari’a in order to repay Muslim leaders who backed his successful election campaign.

In Bekasi, Indonesia, just a few miles south of Jakarta, unrestrained Muslims mobs are shutting down Christian services, threatening pastors and pressuring local officials to move congregations out of their churches.

Muslim protesters prevented a Protestant church from holding Sunday service in Bekasi district, West Java.

The Indonesian Minister for Home Affairs has told the GKI Yasmin Church congregation in Bogor, West Java, that it must again relocate.

Despite the presence of police, hundreds of Islamists again attacked the prayer house of the Protestant Christian Batak Church in Bekasi, Jakarta.

For three days an unidentified mob set fire to homes and vehicles in a predominantly Christian neighborhood in the Moluccas as dozens of families fled in fear of suspected Islamists.

Since May, the Aceh administration has shut down 16 Christian places of worship in Singkil, claiming they were operating without permits and causing complaints.

A mob of Muslims disrupted the worship services of about 100 members of a GKI Yasmin congregation that were being held at a member’s home in Bogor, West Java on Sunday.

A New Jersey community of 72 Indonesians who years ago were spared deportation after a pastor brokered an agreement with immigration authorities allowing them them to stay in the country temporarily may soon be deported thanks to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Muslims of the Islamic Defender Front aided by local officials recently shut down a Protestant church in Jatinangor on rumors that the church was a haven for newly baptised Christians.

A suicide bomber attacked a Protestant church packed with worshippers in Indonesia’s Central Java province on Sunday, September 25, killing himself while injuring over 20 others, police and officials said.

The toll from recent clashes between Christians and Muslims in Ambon, capital of the Moluccas, is three dead and 60 wounded.

An international Christian rights group has expressed “grave concerns” about increased violence against Christians and other religious minorities in Indonesia and urged the government to tackle Islamic extremism.