Indonesian executions spark violent protest http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-09-22T100027Z_01_JAK270296_RTRUKOC_0_US-INDONESIA-EXECUTIONS.xml
Fri Sep 22, 2006
By Crack Palinggi
PALU, Indonesia (Reuters) - Thousands protested over the execution of three Christians in Indonesia on Friday, torching an official's house and setting prisoners free in the hometown of one of the executed men.
The three militants were executed by a police firing squad early on Friday in Central Sulawesi province, despite appeals from Pope Benedict and rights groups.
Fabianus Tibo, Marianus Riwu and Dominggus Silva were sentenced to death in 2001, after being found guilty of leading a mob in an attack that killed more than 200 people at an Islamic boarding school during Muslim-Christian clashes in the province.
The three men had originally been scheduled to die in August but the executions were postponed after the Pope's appeal and demonstrations by thousands of Indonesians.
Security was tight in Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi province, where violence between large Christian and Muslim populations has left thousands dead in recent years.
"According to valid information I received they were shot in a sitting position with their hands tied. Two were blindfolded while Marianus Riwu refused to be blindfolded," the convicts' Catholic priest, Jimmy Tumbelaka, told Reuters.
The bodies of Tibo and Riwu were flown to their hometown while Silva, from Atambua in West Timor, was buried in Palu, 1,650 km (1,030 miles) northeast of Jakarta.
Silva's death triggered protests by thousands of Christians in Atambua. A local Red Cross official, Elli Mali, said the demonstrators broke into a jail and freed about 200 prisoners.
"The mob numbers in thousands. I ran into some of the prisoners and they said, 'I'm free!'", Mali told Reuters. The protesters threw rocks and burned the local prosecutors' house, Indonesian media and police said.
Julito Borges, a policeman in Atambua, told Reuters two policemen were injured but the crowd had begun to disperse.
In Palu, Bishop Joseph Suwatan, whose diocese oversees North and Central Sulawesi, urged the faithful in Palu to remain calm.
EU'S CONCERN
But in the Poso area of Central Sulawesi, where many Christian-Muslim clashes have occurred in recent years, including the incident for which the men were prosecuted, hundreds of protesters rallied against the executions and burned tires on the street, said Minarta, Poso's deputy police chief. The protesters threw rocks at anti-riot policemen, injuring an officer, Minarta told Reuters in the early afternoon. "The protesters are dispersing now," he added.
Indonesian Vice President Jusuf Kalla told reporters: "We are concerned that the public misunderstood. The ... case is not a religious or ethnic issue but simply a legal one."
Human rights groups and other death penalty opponents had urged Indonesia not to proceed with the executions.
The European Union presidency issued a statement saying it had "learned with disappointment that despite numerous expressions of concern by the EU to the Indonesian authorities," Indonesia had carried out the executions. It noted the EU considers the death penalty "cruel and inhuman punishment".
Muslim-Christian clashes rocked Central Sulawesi from late 1998 to 2001, killing an estimated 2,000 before a peace accord took effect. There has been sporadic violence since.
Around 85 percent of Indonesia's 220 million people follow Islam, but some areas in eastern Indonesia have roughly equal proportions of Muslims and Christians.
Three Islamic militants are on death row for the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.
(Additional reporting in JAKARTA by Ahmad Pathoni, Diyan Jari and Telly Nathalia, and by BRUSSELS bureau)
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