Izak Lattu, doctoral student in Interdisciplinary Studies, explains how the actions of one Indonesian politician marks the exception to the general principle of religious tolerance in the country for which it is revered.
"It has been years of agony for GKI Taman Yasmin Protestant church congregation members as Bogor Mayor Diani Budiarto has defied a Supreme Court decision to allow them to attend Sunday mass in their place of worship.
Budiarto’s bureaucratic move reflects the failure of not only law enforcement in the city, but also of the country’s civil justice system....
Indeed, the Bogor case reflects the irony of Indonesian religious tolerance, which has been dubbed a global model for inter-faith relations. In an international discussion at the Islamic Studies Program at the Graduate Theological Union Berkeley, Marriane Farrina, a professor in Christian-Muslim dialogue, ranked Indonesia among the most preferable sites of peaceful relations among religions."