Hundreds of Islamic hard-liners stormed a courthouse and set two churches on fire in central Indonesia to protest what they considered a lenient sentence for a Christian man convicted of blaspheming Islam.
The 58-year-old Antonius Richmond Bawengan was found guilty of distributing books and leaflets that “spread hatred about Islam” and sentenced to five years for blasphemy.
Islamic hard-liners shouted during the rioting that the man should have received the death penalty. Anti-riot police fired into the air to disperse the crowd.
Col. Djahartono, a police spokesman, said the violence broke out Tuesday in front of the District Court in Temanggung and then spread to surrounding neighborhoods. The mob set two churches on fire and threw rocks at a third. They also torched a police truck.
Thousands of angry Muslims attacked three churches, a Christian orphanage and a health centre that is also a Christian. The violence took place this morning at 10 am (local time) and only ended with the intervention of police in riot gear and police vans. One of the vans was set on fire by the crowd.
The revolt took place in Temanggung regency (Central Java), and started right in front of the town hall: first the crowd attacked the court where a trial against Richmond Bawengan Antonius, a Christian born in Manado (North Sulawesi) , accused of proselytizing and blasphemy was being held.
Bawengan was arrested in October 2010 because during a visit to Temanggung he had distributed printed missionary material, which, among other things, poked fun at some Islamic symbols. The profanity has cost him five years in prison, but the crowd were demanding the death sentence. The violence was sparked by their dissatisfaction with the verdict.
Instead of leaving the court, the crowd started pushing, shouting provocative slogans and then destroyed the building. Hundreds of police rushed in to intervene but failed to appease the thousands of Muslims who began to march en masse to "target Christians" on the main street of the city.
The Catholic Church of St Peter and Paul on Sudirman Boulevard was the first to be attacked, according to AsiaNews sources, the parish priest, Fr Saldhana, a missionary of the Holy Family, was violently beaten as he tried to protect the tabernacle and the Eucharist against the mob.
The crowd then attacked a Pentecostal church. According to the pastor Darmanto - another Christian leader of Temanggung - the main goal was the Pentecostal church, which was then burned. The mob, however, still not appeased went on to destroy in a Catholic orphanage and a health centre of the Sisters of Providence.
Another Protestant church in Shekinah was burnt down.
Temanggung, Indonesia, Feb 9, 2011 / 05:51 am (CNA).- An estimated 1,500 Indonesian Muslims destroyed three churches before attacking an orphanage and hospital in Central Java on Feb. 8. The mob was protesting a court's decision not to sentence a Christian man to death for defaming Islam.
Antonius Bawengan, 58, received a five-year prison sentence – the maximum penalty allowed by law – under the “blasphemy law” that has been invoked to silence critics of Islam. However, the crowd assembled at his trial believed the sentence was too lenient, and demanded his death. They assaulted a group of police officers that reportedly numbered around 1,000 before moving against the churches.
The crowd first attacked the Catholic Church of Sts. Peter and Paul, in an assault that seriously wounded a missionary priest of the Holy Family congregation. The missionary, identified only as Fr. Saldanha, was beaten by the mob as he attempted to defend the tabernacle containing the Eucharist against desecration.
The crowd later set fire to two Protestant churches, Bethel Church and Pantekosta Church, before terrorizing a Catholic orphanage and a hospital run by the Sisters of Providence.
Archbishop Johannes M.T. Pukasumarta of Semarang, the Secretary of the Indonesian Bishops' Conference, told Fides news agency that he believed the outbreak of violence seemed to have been “planned and orchestrated” by extremist groups elsewhere in the country, as a response to the Bawengan case.
“We are shocked by this event,” said Archbishop Pujasumarta. “The town of Temanggung is normally a quiet place. The extremists have come from outside.”
He urged Christians to work for reconciliation and forgiveness to the greatest possible extent, rather than retaliating. “Violence is never a good solution,” the archbishop observed, calling on “everyone, Muslims and Christians, to address issues with a sense of civility and in a spirit of fraternity.”
“I invite the Catholic faithful and all Christians not to react to the violence. We want to be a sign of peace to all.”
Nevertheless, the archbishop admitted to Vatican Radio that he felt profoundly “disappointed” by the mounting intolerance of a “group of fanatics” in his country.
Two days before the church attacks, a mob of Muslim extremists in West Java attacked and killed three members of a small Islamic sect, the Ahmadiyah. Video footage of the attack showed attackers stoning their victims to death, then beating the corpses as police officers looked on.
Leonard Leo, chairman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, described the mob's killing of the Ahmadiyah followers as “just more deadly evidence that blasphemy laws are the cause of sectarian violence.”
Domestic and international observers have also noted the negligence of police in both of the recent attacks. Elaine Pearson, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch, called for a “a full investigation into why the police absolutely failed to prevent this mob from going on a violent rampage” against the Ahmadiyah in West Java.
Fr. Ignazio Ismartono, a Jesuit priest who oversees inter-religious dialogue for the Indonesian Bishops' Conference, observed to Fides that “the violence in Temanggung was in preparation for days” before the church burnings and other anti-Christian violence actually occurred.
During those preceding days, he said, “the police did nothing to prevent public disorder.”
Christian leaders faulted Indonesian authorities for security breaches that allowed Islamic extremist mobs this week to attack a defendant convicted of defaming Islam, the judge that sentenced him, two churches and a Christian school.The judge in Temanggung, Central Java on Tuesday (Feb. 8) sentenced Antonius Richmond Bawengan to five years in prison – the maximum allowed under Indonesia’s “blasphemy” law – for distributing pamphlets that allegedly disparaged the Kaaba, the black cube-shaped building in Mecca, Saudi Arabia that Muslims face when praying, source said.
Not satisfied with the five-year sentence, Islamist mobs rushed toward the defendant and judge, who were whisked out of the courtroom. Crowds outside began to break windows and burn vehicles around the courthouse, also damaging the lobby, and before nightfall more than 1,000 Muslim extremists had damaged Sts. Peter and Paul Church and the Indonesia Pentecostal Church, as well as Shekinah Christian School. The school belongs to the Indonesia Bethel Church of Temanggung.
The mob reportedly wounded a missionary priest from the Sts. Peter and Paul church identified only as the Rev. Saldanha.
The Rev. Gomar Gultom, general secretary of the Communion of Churches in Indonesia, told Compass that his organization condemned all violence against members of any faith.
“We also condemn the state, which has committed such omission when violence occurred,” he said.
Gultom said that the state should protect every religion and belief in this country as stated in Indonesia’s constitution.
The secretary of the Indonesian Bishops Conference, the Rev. Benny Susetyo, said he has asked the government to definitively resolve the growing problem of anti-Christian violence in Indonesia, saying such incidents have repeatedly occurred. He urged police to arrest and punish the assailants immediately.
“If the government does not act, those who have committed violence may feel above the law,” Susetyo told Compass. “And that means legal Indonesian civilization has been destroyed.”
Bawengan was traveling to Magelang, East Java when he stopped in nearby Kenalan village, outside Temanggung in Kranggan district, on Oct. 3, 2010. A source said Bawengan took the opportunity to distribute pamphlets containing material that was considered insulting to Muslims, and he was arrested on Oct. 26.
“In his books and pamphlets, Antonius Bawengan was considered to have insulted the Kaaba, which is a sacred place for Muslims,” said the source on condition of anonymity.
Indonesia’s defamation of religion statute, Article 156(A) of the Penal Code, is based on law adopted by presidential decision in 1965 and stipulates up to five years of prison for anyone who publicly “gives expression to feelings or commits an act which principally has the character of being at enmity with, abusing or staining a religion adhered to in Indonesia; or with the intention to prevent a person to adhere to any religion based on the belief of the almighty God.”
Fire and Stones
A day after the Temanggung attack, radical Islamists got local officials to seal a church in Taman Galaxi, Bekasi, West Java Province, according to Theophilus Bela, secretary general of the Indonesian Committee on Religion and Peace and president of the Jakarta Christian Communication Forum.
The Protestant Church of West Indonesia Galilea (GPIB Galilea) had also been attacked last year, Bela said in a press statement. The area has seen several instances of Islamist hostility, although police were able to avert rioting in the sealing of the GPIB Galilea church on Wednesday (Feb. 9), according to Bela.
The incidents against Christians followed Islamist violence against the minority Muslim Ahmadiyya sect earlier this week. On Sunday (Feb. 6) an Islamic extremist mob attacked an Ahmadiyya congregation in Cikeusik, Pandeglang, Banten Province, killing three and severely wounding others, according to Bela.
Another Ahmadiyya congregation was attacked in Bogor, West Java on Wednesday (Feb. 9).
“It seems to me that religious tensions are getting high again in the country,” Bela stated.
In the Temanggung rampage in Central Java, a security guard at the Shekina school, Sony Zepulan, told Tempointeraktif.com that hijab-wearing women joined men in helmets and turbans in the attacks, damaging several school buildings.
“They poured gasoline and burned it,” Zepulan said, according to Tempointeraktif.com. “However, the fire was controlled and did not burn the entire building.”
The general secretary of Indonesia Bethel Church Synod, the Rev. Ferry Haurisa, told Compass that damage to the school amounted to about 250 million rupiahs (US$27,750).
“The mobs were damaging and burning down Shekina school, owned by the Indonesian Bethel Church of Temanggung,” Haurisa said. “We just pray that God will intervene and forgive this nation.”
While damage to the Sts. Peter and Paul church came mainly from stoning, the Pentecostal church building was reportedly burned along with six motorcycles and three cars parked there. Islamists reportedly pelted the property with Molotov bombs.
The rampaging Islamic extremists reportedly numbered as many as 1,500, with Temanggung Regent Hasyim Affandi asserting that they came from outside the area. Affandi reportedly said he hoped the culprits would be punished.
The chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), a U.S. government advisory board, released a statement urging Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to bring the perpetrators of the attacks to swift justice.
“The fact remains that religious tensions will continue as long as militant groups expect the government to enforce one version of orthodoxy, instead of religious freedom for all,” said USCIRF Chair Leonard Leo. “Extremists were rejected at the polls last year, but seek influence by spreading violence and hate.”
Read more: http://www.charismamag.com/index.php/more-news/30195-after-attacks-christian-leaders-in-indonesia-decry-lax-security#ixzz1EErmGNAE
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