5 years in jail for teaching Sunday School?

FAITH UNDER FIRE
5 years in jail for teaching Sunday School?
Indonesian housewives in hot water after kids invite Muslim friends

Posted: July 12, 2005
1:00 am Eastern

© 2009 WorldNetDaily.com

Three Christian housewives in Indonesia have been charged with endangering children and face a possible five years in prison after teaching a kids Sunday School class, a human-rights group reports.

According to International Christian Concern, which helps persecuted believers worldwide, the criminal charges stem from three Sunday School lessons the women – Rebecca Laonita Z, Rama Mala Bangun and Etty Pangesti – taught in 2003 and 2005.

The activities the women led included: telling stories and teaching from the Bible, teaching Christian prayers, providing prizes like pencils for memorizing Bible verses, giving children towels with a picture of Jesus, and giving kids blue sport shirts that bore a cross and the logo of their church. The women also allegedly invited a child to attend a church service and lent a girl a Bible to read, International Christian Concern reported.

While most of the children involved went to the women's church, the kids had invited some of their Muslim friends to the classes – and that's when the trouble began.

Indonesia has a child-protection criminal statute that states:

Any person who purposely uses deception, lies or enticement to make a child choose another religion not of his own free will ... will be prosecuted by imprisonment for five years and/or a fine of Rp.100,000,000.

In the last several years, Indonesia has seen the destruction of entire Christian villages by Muslim mobs.

"ICC has toured many of these burned down villages and seen firsthand the destruction wrought by intolerance, hatred, and fear of those that are different," International Christian Concern said. "ICC is still assisting these victims of hate."

Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim nation.

ICC is asking its supporters to contact the Indonesian Embassy in Washington, D.C., to protest the prosecution of the Christian women.