Christian executions spark riots

Indonesia:Violence broke out in Christian areas of Indonesia on Friday after the government carried out early morning executions of three Christian men allegedly involved in a religious-incited massacre of Muslims six years ago.

‘Some people expressed their anger after the executions by blocking some main roads and throwing rocks at the local attorney general’s house,’said provincial police spokesman Major Marten Raja. Mobs also reportedly attacked a prison in West Timor, the main island of the province, causing 250 inmates to flee.

Fabianus Tibo, Marianus Riwu and Dominggus Silva were found guilty of masterminding clashes in central Sulawesi in 2000 that killed 70 people.

The men had been found guilty of leading a Christian militia that launched a series of attacks on Muslims in May 2000 in Poso district, including a gun-and-machete assault in which at least 70 people taking refugee in an Islamic school were killed.

The massacre was one of the bloodiest incidents in sectarian violence between Christians and Muslims that swept through previously harmonious central Sulawesi from 1998 to 2002, leaving more than 1,000 people from both communities dead and tens of thousands homeless

The executions drew condemnation from the Vatican and international rights groups