Ciledug school remains sealed off

Ciledug school remains sealed off

Urip Hudiono, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

At least 2,417 students of private Sang Timur Catholic school in
Ciledug, Tangerang, were still unable to attend classes on
Wednesday, as a zealot group had yet to tear down a wall it
erected on Sunday to block the school's main entrance in protest
of religious services being held there.

A two-meter-tall brick wall blocks the five-meter wide gate of
the school. A plaque with the inscription "This passageway has
been sealed by the Karang Tengah Islamic Communication Forum"
hangs on it.

Banners rejecting "the school's conversion attempts" could be
seen throughout the housing complex where the school is located.

Hillon Goa, chairman of the Sang Timur school's parents forum,
told The Jakarta Post that the school had planned to resume
classes on Wednesday.

Goa explained that the school had reached an agreement on
Monday night with local officials -- including the district chief
-- that the wall could be torn down.

"But then the group came again, protesting the agreement, so
the authorities then backed down," he said.

The school, located inside the finance ministry housing
complex on Jl. Raden Saleh, Ciledug, is owned by the Sang Timur
Foundation and has classes from kindergarten to junior high
school level, as well as a school for children with disabilities.

Some 8,000 Catholics of the local Saint Bernadette parish have
been using a hall at the rear side of the school for church
services on weekends for the last 12 years, since they have not
been able to build a church at a nearby site.

In a related development, the Indonesian Catholic Community
Forum has sent an official letter to the National Commission on
Human Rights (Komnas HAM), requesting that their basic,
constitutional right to religious freedom be upheld.

It also requested that local officials provide a solution to
where the parishioners can hold religious services since they can
no longer hold them at the school.

"Our main concern is that our children will be traumatized and
no longer believe in tolerance, compassion and in the supremacy
of the law, which they have always been taught," said Goa.