Muhammad Farhan, mayor of Bandung City, affirmed the GRII church’s right to worship. (Kota Bandung, Creative Commons)

SURABAYA, Indonesia (Morning Star News) – Muslims in West Java, Indonesia demonstrated against a Christian revival worship service on Jan. 6 attended by a staff member of an official in the Ministry of Religious Affairs.

Carrying banners and a truck full of loudspeakers, Muslims from the Bandung City-based Ahlus Sunnah Defenders group protested the service of the Indonesian Evangelical Reformed Church (Gereja Reformed Injili Indonesia, GRII), at the FX Surdirman Grand Ballroom in Bandung, capital of West Java Province.

“Today we took to the streets because Christians under the leadership of Stephen Tong were holding a 2026 religious service,” a representative of the Muslim group says in a video of the demonstration. “We are not rejecting the service. We are not prohibiting Christians from worshipping according to their respective beliefs. We are demonstrating because they are using public facilities, the FX Sudirman Grand Ballroom.’

As police guarded the venue, the Ahlus Sunnah Defenders representative claimed that the church was not allowed to use the building because of prohibitions against “spreading religious activities which deviate from the principal teachings of Islam” in the 2016 Joint Decree of the Three Ministers and the 2006 Joint Decree of the Two Ministers on ethics for religious broadcasting and the establishment of houses of worship.

Present at the service was Gugun Gumilar, special staff to the Indonesian Minister of Religious Affairs for Religious Harmony, Monitoring and Foreign Cooperation, who told media later that the rights of Indonesian citizens to worship must be upheld.

On the video, another protester can be heard shouting that the worship service was an attempt at converting Muslims to Christianity.

Prior to the protest the Muslim group had sent a letter opposing the service to the organizing committee of the event on the morning of Jan. 6, a Facebook account identified as Bukurohani posted, asserting that the morning and afternoon protest exceeded the legal limit of hours permitted for demonstrations.

In its four-point statement letter, the Ahlus Sunnah Defenders accused the worship service of “frequently involving Muslims” and:

“Openly inviting citizens or the public, not specifically targeting Christians, and disseminating the information through various media, both print and electronic, such as public transportation, private cars, banners, billboards, and electronic media,” which they consider to be provocation and propaganda aimed at converting Muslims.

“Conducting activities at the Bandung Institute of Technology Ganesha Cultural Centre for years without official permission, specifically from the police, is a violation of Police Regulation No. 7 of 2023.

“Worship and Christmas celebrations are part of a series of religious services that should be held at places of worship or churches, as stipulated in the 2006 Ministerial Decree No. 2 (Minister of Religious Affairs and Home Affairs).”

Gugun told reporters that his presence at the service indicated the government’s total commitment to ensure and uphold the right to worship for all Indonesian citizens according to the constitution, TVOnenews.com. reported.

“Rev. Stephen Hong is also a national figure who has consistently spread moral values, nationalism and a mature religious life,” Gugun reportedly said. “The Ministry of Religious Affairs is not merely present symbolically, but also wants to ensure that this religious activity runs smoothly.”

Bandung Mayor Muhammad Farhan affirmed Gugun’s assertions.

“The Bandung City Government ensures that all religious communities have the same right to worship,” Farhan reportedly said.

Bandung, he said, is an open city that upholds the values ​​of diversity, and differences must be addressed wisely and resolved through dialogue and deliberation.

The advocacy group Indonesian Movement for All (PIS) stated in a podcast that not a single court ruling declared such a service an illegal activity.

“In a state governed by the rule of law, the courts determine whether an activity is legal or not, not by the judgments of mass organizations,” PIS stated. “All their accusations are clearly fabricated. In fact, mass religious gatherings, large-scale religious studies, National Zikr (remembrance day celebrations) and Maulid (celebration of the Prophet Muhammad) are also openly promoted through banners, billboards, social media and public spaces.”

None of these activities have has ever been considered religious coercion, it stated.

“No regulation in Indonesia prohibits the publication of open religious events as long as there is no hate speech or coercion,” PIS stated. “Equating the publication of events with apostasy is a mistaken conclusion.”

Santrawan Totone Paparang, chairman of the Legal Aid Institute for the Greater Indonesia Christian Movement (Gerakan Kristen Indonesia Raya, Gekira), an organization affiliated with the Greater Indonesia Movement Party (Gerindra), indicated that continued demonstrations against the service were unlawful and contrary to the Constitution of the Unitary State of the Republic of Indonesia.

Contrary to the protesters’ accusations that the venue was a public space, Santrawan said that it was a special venue rented by the event organizing committee.

“The Sudirman Ballroom is not a public space. It is a closed, legal and legally rented space,” Sanrawan said, according to Portal-komando.com. “The reason for the rejection based on the pretext of using public facilities has no legal basis.”

Santrawan said that freedom of religion and worship is a constitutional right stipulated in Article 29 of the 1945 Constitution; no group in society has the authority to restrict or interfere with the practice of worship of another religion.

“Freedom of worship is subject to the 1945 Constitution, not to the Joint Decree of the Two Ministers or the Joint Decree of the Three Ministers,” he said. “In the hierarchy of laws and regulations, the Joint Decree is far below the 1945 Constitution, so it cannot conflict with the constitution.”

Santrawan noted that the new criminal code (KUHP) coming into effect soon criminalizes any action that obstructs, disperses or intimidates religious worship.

“The new criminal code emphasizes that acts of disrupting or obstructing religious worship are criminal offenses,” Santrawan said. “There is no longer any room for justification based on mass pressure, unilateral interpretation or administrative pretexts.”

Indonesian society in recent years has adopted a more conservative Islamic character, and churches involved in evangelistic outreach are at risk of being targeted by Islamic extremist groups, according to Open Doors.

If you would like to help persecuted Christians, visit https://morningstarnews.org/resources/aid-agencies/ for a list of organizations that can orient you on how to get involved.  

If you or your organization would like to help enable Morning Star News to continue raising awareness of persecuted Christians worldwide with original-content reporting, please consider collaborating at https://morningstarnews.org/donate/?

###

© 2026 Morning Star News. Articles/photos may be reprinted with credit to Morning Star News. https://morningstarnews.org 

Tweet: https://twitter.com/morningstarnewz/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MorningStarNews

Morning Star News is a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation that relies solely on contributions to offer original news reports of persecuted Christians. By providing reliable news on the suffering church, Morning Star News’ mission is to empower those in the free world to help and to encourage persecuted Christians that they are not forgotten or alone. For free subscription, contact [email protected]; to make tax-deductible donations, visit https://morningstarnews.org/donate/? or send check to Morning Star News, 34281 Doheny Park Rd., # 7022, Capistrano Beach, CA 92624, USA.