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PALU, Indonesia (Reuters) - The execution of three Christians in Indonesia on Friday brought thousands of protesters to the streets in the hometown of one of the dead, where they freed prisoners and burned an official's house, a witness said.
The three Christian militants were executed by an Indonesian police firing squad early on Friday amidst tight security in Palu, capital of Central Sulawesi province.
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Relatives of three Indonesian Christians executed earlier are seen mourning during a memorial service at Santa Maria Church in Palu, central Sulawesi September 22, 2006. The three men convicted of leading a mob that killed Muslims were executed by a police firing squad early on Friday in the province, police said. (REUTERS/Crack Palinggi) |
The convicts' priest, Jimmy Tumbelaka, said they had been officially declared dead at 3 a.m. (2000 GMT Thursday), although police officials said the actual execution was hours earlier.
"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," Tumbelaka told Reuters.
The bodies of Tibo and Riwu were flown to their home town while Silva was buried in Palu.
In Silva's hometown of Atambua in West Timor, thousands of Christians protested in anger over the executions.
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.
"The situation is cooling thanks to appeals by religious leaders and the swift action of security personnel," Deputy national police chief Adang Dorojatun told reporters in Jakarta.
In Palu, Bishop Joseph Suwatan, whose diocese oversees North and Central Sulawesi, urged the faithful in Palu to remain calm.
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 tyres on the street, deputy police chief Minarta said.
The protesters threw rocks at anti-riot policemen, injuring one officer, Minarta told Reuters in the early afternoon. "The protestors are dispersing now," he added.
Authorities turned down a request for the executed men's bodies to be laid out in the Santa Maria church in Palu, Tumbelaka said.
"We are disappointed they didn't get a proper religious service and customary rites," he said.
The trio had originally been scheduled to die in August but the executions were postponed after demonstrations by thousands of Indonesians and an appeal from Pope Benedict.
SECURITY FORCES DEPLOYED
About 4,000 police and soldiers had been deployed in Central Sulawesi "to anticipate any untoward incidents", police spokesman Kilat had said earlier this week.
Human rights groups had urged Indonesia not to proceed with the executions.
Isabelle Carton, South East Asia researcher at Amnesty International, said on Friday: "We are deeply disappointed that despite the debate on the death penalty that the case had sparked across Indonesia, the state went ahead and killed these three men."
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.
Elsewhere in Indonesia, three Islamic militants are on death row for their leading roles in the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people.
There have been suggestions that executing the bombers would be less likely to stir unrest or political fallout if they were put to death after the three Christians, but one analyst rejected the notion of a link.
"In the Poso case, religious sentiments are very strong, while in the Bali case we don't see that phenomenon," said Azyumardi Azra, Islamic scholar and rector of the State Islamic University in Jakarta.
"There are no Islamic groups demanding that the Bali bombers not be executed," he said.
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.