Implement Church Ruling, Chief Justice Tells Bogor Mayor

Jakarta Globe | November 17, 2011

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Supreme Court Chief Justice Harifin Andi Tumpa has told Bogor’s controversial mayor Diani Budiarto to stop making excuses and implement a ruling to lift a ban on the GKI Yasmin church.

In brief comments reported by Vivanews, Harifin said on Thursday that the case was attracting negative publicity about Indonesia.

“It has been problematic and is in the international spotlight,” Harifin said at his office. “The ruling should be executed.”

President Barack Obama, who arrives in Bali this evening for the Asean Summit, has been urged to raise the ban on the church, as well as other examples of Indonesia’s worsening climate of religious tolerance, when he meets President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.

Diani, who won the 2008 election with the backing of the Golkar Party, Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) as well as the Islam-based Prosperous Justice Party, has offered a range of weak excuses for failing to implement the ruling, including that churches could not be built on streets with Islamic names.

In October, the Ombudsman sent a letter to Yudhoyono and Supreme Court, reporting the mayor’s continued defiance of legal orders to unseal the church, which has forced congregation members to worship on the side of a road where they are harassed by local authorities.

Only the PDI-P has revoked its support for the mayor.

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