Indonesia authorities close down church's worship space; pastor dragged by mob

Christian church members wait for news at the church closed by local authorities following months of violence and hostility to the congregation by Muslim vigilantes in Bekasi, outside Jakarta on September 16, 2010. Police arrested a local leader of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), an Islamic vigilante group on September 15, 2010, over an armed assault on church elders which shocked moderates and raised fears for pluralism in the mainly Muslim country. A group of men stabbed the Protestant church member and bashed a pastor while on their way to a church service in Bekasi on September 12, 2010. | ROMEO GACAD/AFP via Getty Images

SURABAYA, Indonesia — Authorities from Jombang Regency, Indonesia, with a mob of about 50 area residents on Aug. 18, dragged a pastor from his worship site and sealed the shop where his church met, sources said.
The sealing of the worship site was part of a Jombang government effort to recover dozens of shops the government says it owns at a business compound in the Weru area of Mojongapit village, East Java Province.

Pastor Herri Soesanto described the government seizure of the two-story shop-house used by his Good God Church (Gereja Gembala Baik, or GAB) in the Simpang Tiga Shopping Compound, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) west of Surabaya, as “violent and anarchic.”

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