Indonesia

Hundreds of Indonesian Muslims in Java’s North Bekasi District have protested the construction of a church for the district’s Catholic community.

Official church closures have not stopped the growth of Christianity in Indonesia.

Last week, a mob of about 750 Muslims armed with axes set fire to a church in Indonesia’s Aceh province that Muslims alleged lacked the proper building permits.

Christians in Indonesia’s most eastern province are facing an Islamization program that is changing the demographics of the formerly Christian-majority region, according to Barnabas Aid.

Under pressure from Islamic extremist movements authorities in West Java, have ordered the closure of seven Protestant churches for ‘alleged irregularities in building permits’ according to AsiaNews.

On Friday, hundreds of armed Islamists led by local Muslim leaders forcibly occupied a two-acre plot owned by the Indonesian Christian community of Huria Kristen Batak in the village of Talang Kelapa, South Sumatra, according to Asia News.

Church closures in Indonesia that peaked during the Christmas holidays have spilled over into January as Islamist groups continue to target Christian congregations, according to International Christian Concern.

The Ulema Advisory Council of Banda Aceh has instructed its Muslim community not to celebrate Christmas and New Year’s.

Extremists from the Islamic Defenders Front have disrupted the Sunday services of the Tandemn Huria Kristen Batak Protestant community of Binjai in the Indonesian province of Sumatra.

Islamists in Indonesia are demanding the removal of a new political appointee in a Muslim-majority region of West Java because she’s a Christian, according to Barnabas Aid.

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.