The Jakarta Post, 6/13/2004 5:57:42 PM
Police arrest five over incident at Christian school in Karawang
JAKARTA (AFP): Indonesian police have arrested five people over an attack by a mob
on Muslims protesting at a Christian school under construction in Karawang regency,
West Java, that left one dead, police said on Sunday.
Police are currently questioning the five suspects at the Karawang police
headquarters, 50 kilometers west of the capital, an officer on duty there said.
The officer, who declined to give his name, said that the five were questioned over the
attack on the Muslim protesters at the Yadika school in Cikampek Selatan, in the
Cikampek district of Karawang on Friday.
He also declined to give more details of the suspects.
One of the participants of the protest organized by the Cikampek Muslim Movement,
died in hospital after he was hit with a piece of wood on the head, police have said.
Three other people were also injured.
The protesters had collapsed the fence of the school, burned pieces of wood and
damaged the school building which was still under construction when a group of men
suddenly attacked them.
The protesters had been demanding that the Christian foundation which owns the
school halt construction of the school.
It was the latest attack on a Christian-related building in the past week.
A petrol bomb was hurled at a Roman Catholic church in the Sleman regency of
Yogyakarta province on Wednesday but caused no serious damage or casualties.
Mobs attacked four churches in two neighboring suburbs of the Indonesian capital
Jakarta on June 6, slightly injuring a priest and causing some damage.
Three of those churches were in buildings in commercial areas that had no permit for
use as places of worship. Such unauthorized churches have come in for attack in the
past.
Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim-populated nation, with 88 percent of its 212
million people following Islam. Some eight percent are Christians.
Islam is not the official religion and the constitution provides for freedom of worship.
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