West Java, a mosque beside the church, a solution to the Yasmin Church dispute
Jakarta (AsiaNews) - Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto has put forward a
proposal that would be a "victory for all", to put an end to the
dispute over the Yasmin Church: build a mosque next to the place of Christian
worship, following the example of Central Jakarta, where - side
by side - there are the Catholic Cathedral and the Istiqlal mosque. The
project emerged yesterday during a meeting of the committee set up to achieve
an agreement. The
mayor of the municipality
of West Java filed the
solution in recent months and is still waiting for a response from the faithful
of the Protestant community. The
Christians respond that they have received no "official" proposal, but
stressed they support the idea in principle to put an end to a controversy that
has dragged on for over three years and has caused riots and sectarian
tensions.
Yesterday
in Central Jakarta the Joint Committee, which unites the two sides currently at
odds over the Yasmin Church (YC) in Bogor, West
Java province of Indonesia, held its second meeting. It
is supported by the Presidential Council Body (Wantimpres), which aims to end
the "war" taking place around the Protestant Christian place of
worship. The
headquarters of Wantimpres - located next to the Presidential Palace in Jakarta - hosted the
meeting, which was held under the leadership of human rights activist and
prominent lawyer Albert Hasibuan. And
it is the lawyer to reveal the details of the proposal: the Mayor of Bogor,
absent from the meeting, is reported to have sent a letter in which he proposes
to build a mosque next to the church. The
solution was shown to participants at the meeting yesterday, among whom there
was a delegation of YC, some members of Wantimpres and two army generals,
representing the Council of National Defense who have "endorsed" the
solution proposal from Diani Budiarto.
In
the letter, the Mayor states that he advanced the solution last September, but
"Yasmin Church has rejected that proposal."
The
leaders of the Christian community, interviewed by AsiaNews, immediately denied this. They confirmed receiving notice of the
proposal by the national council of defense, "but we have not received a
formal processes of agreement between the representatives of local
government." We would support the proposal for
a mosque next to the church - says Bona Sigalingging, YC spokesperson - but we
have not yet received a formal agreement. "However, for the parties
involved in mediating the step forward yesterday is" good news "for
the future, as confirmed the senior
officer of the Defence Council Junianto Haroen.
The
Yasmin Church, a Protestant church, is the
scene of an apparent violation of the law and religious freedom perpetrated by the
local mayor Diani Budiarto who, regardless of the dictates of a constitutional
court ruling in favor of Christians, has for years prevented construction from
going ahead. The
building was designed according to the criteria established by law and has the
building permit (IMB) required for places of prayer. Last
October, the mayor deployed security forces against the faithful, who can no
longer use the place of worship and can not even pray in the streets.
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