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Religious Hate Crimes in Indonesia: Christian Family Beheaded

Written by Abigail Romero and edited by Anh Nguyen


Content warning: Mentions of gruesome crime, terrorism, and violence

Note: Little is known regarding the case discussed in this article, so information may be repetitive. We will do our best to update this article once more information is known.


Religious hate crimes in Indonesia are nothing new. In fact, this is the third violent attack from the Islamic terrorist group MIT in the past three months. In 2005, three Catholic girls were beheaded by Muslim extremists and in 2006 three Catholics were murdered for sheltering other Catholics in their home. In 2018, a family of suicide bombers attacked three Christian churches, killing 13 and injuring 40 others. These are only a few of the several examples of religious hate crimes.


Unfortunately, one more hate crime will be added to the list as of November 27, 2020. At 8:00 AM in the morning, an alleged terrorist came onto the Central Sulawesi Salvation Army camp and murdered a family of four Christians. Three of them were found mutilated, hacked, and beheaded. One of them was found burnt and twisted, forced to experience intense agony before death. The International Christian Concern received video evidence of the mutilated bodies being pulled from burnt wreckage. After murdering the family, the terrorist burnt down six buildings on the Salvation Army outpost, including a Christian church.


Though the attack received much national condemnation from political parties like the Solidarity and Democratic parties and National Commission on Human Rights, the Central Sulawesi Religious Harmony Forum requested that Sulawesi residents stay calm and not connect the attack to a religious meaning.


However, that is exactly what is happening now. The Chief Inspector of Sulawesi Police, Rakhman Baso denies that a church was burned down. In a press conference on November 29, Baso said, “I want to straighten the fact that there was no church that was burned”. Several others share his sentiment, stating that arson didn’t take place at the church, but rather, at a place where worship is commonly held. However, members of the Salvation Army disagree. Erik Kape, the Palu Salvation Army Commander commented on the situation, “I was a little bit disappointed that it was described [in the news] as a residential house used as a church. That was wrong. I can assure you that it was a church because I was the one who officiated it last Christmas”. Other members of the Salvation Army share this sentiment, especially those on the Central Sulawesi outpost.


Both sides could be correct though. It is possible that even though the church is officiated, it isn’t legally recognized as a church by the local government. Irregardless of that fact, it was clear that the terrorist attack was targeted towards a group of innocent Christians on a Christian outpost, one whose mission is peace.


The suspected terrorist group is an Islamic terrorist group called the East Indonesia Mujahidin, though they’re more colloquially called MIT. The MIT group is affiliated with a transnational Asian terrorist group called Jemaah Islamiyah and ISIS. They’re based in the Central Sulawesi jungle. Their leader, Santoso, was killed by the police in 2016 and replaced by Ali Kalora. Over the course of a couple years, the National Police of Indonesia have launched an operation that has drastically reduced the numbers of MIT to a couple dozen men who are still deep in the Central Sulawesi jungle.


Currently the Indonesian government has released a manhunt for the terrorists who attacked the Salvation Army outpost and an operation to bring down the rest of MIT. In the meantime, victims of the attack mourn the loss of their friends and families.


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Cover Photo sourced from Asia News

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