Members of the GYI Yasmin Church worshiping outside of Indonesia’s presidential palace in 2010.
On June 27, a mob stormed a house in West Java where a group of Christian young people had gathered for a religious retreat.
Rumors had spread that the house, located in the village of Tangkil in Sukabumi regency, was being used as an “unauthorized” place of worship. Acting on these rumors, the mob forcibly entered the premises, breaking windows, damaging furniture and even throwing a motorbike into a nearby river. The Indonesian Christian Youth Movement (locally known as GAMKI), which organized the retreat, reported extensive destruction.
Videos of the attack quickly circulated online, prompting public outrage and renewed concerns about religious intolerance. West Java police chief Rudi Setiawan told media that the incident was being treated seriously, with the regional governor Dedi Mulyadi also vowing to monitor the investigation. Eventually, police arrested seven of the attackers.
However, the arrests leave unaddressed the root cause of the violence. The legal basis often cited by such mobs is a 2006 joint ministerial decree issued by the Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs, which sets out strict requirements for establishing a place of worship.
Severe restrictions on houses of worship
The decree mandates that a religious group must secure at least 90 signatures from its members and 60 signatures from local residents of different faiths, along with a recommendation from the local Religious Harmony Forum (FKUB) and the local district head.
In practice, this allows local prejudice or political pressure to block the establishment of houses of worship. Minorities are forced to seek approval from people who may have no interest in granting it and may actively oppose their presence. Even when the required signatures are collected, objections are often raised claiming the signatures are fake or obtained improperly, which local authorities use to justify revoking or withholding permits
The requirement of a recommendation from the FKUB, which is usually composed of representatives from local religious groups, adds another layer of potential bias. FKUBs are not neutral bodies and often reflect the prevailing sentiment in the area. Their refusal to grant a recommendation can halt the process entirely.
In effect, the decree empowers local actors to decide whether a religious group can exist visibly and legally in their neighborhood. It replaces legal rights with discretionary permissions, allowing procedural hurdles and community sentiment to override constitutional protections. It also introduces a political dimension to worship, where securing permits becomes a matter of lobbying and negotiation, not legal entitlement. This undermines both religious freedom and the neutrality of the state in matters of faith.
These conditions apply even when worship takes place on private property. Although Indonesia’s national laws do not prohibit religious activities in private homes, this decree has repeatedly been used to criminalize Christian gatherings. What may appear to be a mechanism for promoting interfaith harmony has, in practice, become a tool for enforcing majoritarian control over minority religious expression.
Church closures and protests
In 2010, the Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church (GKI Yasmin) in Bogor, on the suburbs of the national capital of Jakarta in West Java, was sealed by local authorities despite holding all necessary permits and a Supreme Court ruling in its favor. Local residents claimed that signatures on the permit application had been falsified, a claim that was never substantiated but was nonetheless used to block the church’s operation.
In another case the same year, the Filadelfia Batak Christian Protestant Church (HKBP Filadelfia) in Bekasi faced repeated harassment and was barred from using its property for worship despite a court ruling affirming its rights.
In both cases, congregants resorted to holding Sunday services in front of the State Palace in Jakarta to draw attention to their plight. These public gatherings continued for years, often under police watch, symbolizing the state’s failure to uphold its own legal decisions.
Pancasila and the image of secular Indonesia
Indonesia projects itself as a country where Islam is practiced in a way that allows peaceful coexistence, civil liberties and political freedoms, setting it apart from the version of Islam promoted in Saudi Arabia and other more restrictive models. Much of the world sees the archipelago as a model nation where Islam coexists with democracy and pluralism.
This image draws strength from the state ideology of Pancasila, which affirms belief in one God, humanism, national unity, democratic governance and social justice, and from the influence of major Muslim organizations like Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama.
But laws like the 2006 decree contradict that image.
The decree allows mobs to override religious rights with procedural objections. It provides grounds for interference in private religious expression, legitimizing collective pressure and allowing vigilantism to pose as civic duty. This creates a hostile environment for minority groups, deters them from practicing their faith freely and reinforces a second-class status.
If Indonesia wishes to remain credible as a secular republic that protects religious freedom, it cannot allow a single regulation to compromise the rights of its minorities. The arrests in the latest case were necessary, but insufficient. They treated the symptom, not the cause. Unless the 2006 decree is repealed or rewritten in a way that restores the individual’s right to worship without neighborhood permission slips, such incidents are likely to continue, and the promise of Pancasila will ring hollow.
