Report criticizes response to attacks on Indonesian churches

Dozens of churches in Indonesia come under attack every year and the country's president is failing to take action to stop it. That’s according to a leading Catholic peace activist who has produced a report describing the scale of the problem.

Since 2006, more than 200 attacks on churches have been recorded by the Indonesian Committee on Religion and Peace under Theophilus Bela, president of the Jakarta Christian community forum.

In his report submitted to the Catholic charity and advocacy group Aid to the Church in Need (ACN), Mr Bela stated that in the first five months of this year, there were 14 attacks on churches and 46 in 2010 as a whole.

“Mr Bela has been very critical of the government’s handling,” says John Pontifex, Head of Press and Information at ACN. Pontifex quoted Bela as saying, “the president sleeps if there is an attack on Christian churches. If the president sleeps, so do the police.”

Pontifex called on the international Christian community to pray for Christians in Indonesia: “What they say that they want most if all is to feel that they’re not alone, that they have a voice in the West. And that that voice calls not only for information and action, but also calls for prayer.”

Listen to John Pontifex’s full interview with Kelsea Brennan-Wessels: