Indonesian authorities on high alert after church attacks
Police in Indonesia are investigating a worrying surge in attacks or attempted attacks
on churches and police stations in Central Java over the past week. Since 30 November,
police have found and defused bombs at three churches and three police stations, while
one church has been firebombed and another shot at.
The Archbishop of Semarang
has called the entire Catholic community "to remain calm" after the explosion of two
bombs in the church of Christ the King on 7 December. The explosives were placed in
two milk cans, along with nails and small stones.
On the same day, two other
letter bombs were found in nearby Surakarta: the first in a yard and the second near
the police station.
“Maybe it is a preparation for Christmas,” says Jesuit
Father Ignatius Ismartono, coordinator for the Crisis and Reconciliation Service of
the Bishops’ Conference of Indonesia. “Later, during the Christmas mass and the Christmas
festivities, we always invite police to keep guard of our churches.”
Fr Ismartono
says that ever since the coordinated Christmas Eve bombings in 2000 – in which 18
people were killed – the church in Indonesia has had to include security expenses
in its Christmas budget.
But Fr Ismartono told Vatican Radio that in some small
cities, Muslim youths offer to protect the church free of charge as a gesture of “solidarity
and friendship.”