Indonesian Sunday School Teachers Lose Appeal
The three Sunday school teachers in Indonesia sentenced to three years in prison for allegedly converting young Muslim children to Christianity have lost their appeal to have their sentences overturned.
Posted: Saturday, November 26 , 2005, 11:12 (UK)

International Christian Concern has reported, from Indonesian sources, that the three Sunday school teachers in Indonesia imprisoned in India have lost their appeal to have their three-year sentences overturned.

Dr. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun. had run a popular Sunday school program in which several Muslim children participated in after obtaining parental consent.

Despite Indonesia’s constitution guaranteeing religious freedom, as well as the right to propagate that religion, Islamic radicals have succeeding in pushing through the legislature laws intended to prevent the spread of Christianity.

The women were sentenced in a court case which, according to reports, had seen the regular intimidation of the judges and the women if they were not found guilty, after a local Islamic group brought charges against the three women for breaking the “Child Protection Act.”

Christian Freedom International’s President, Jim Jacobson, visited the women in the prison in the Indramayu district of West Java where he found them living in conditions of squalor. Story