Indonesian executions spark violent protest

Don't these Muslims ever get tired of violence?

Oh, wait! Those are Christians:

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.

....

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 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.

Before you get pissed off, I'm not trying to imply that Christians are violent and Muslims aren't! It's just that violence by Muslims is a bigger story in the Western press, while Muslim countries hear stories we don't hear about Christian violence.

Unfortunately, the Biblical religions are prone to violence, to the shame of Jesus and Mohammed. And the closer they are in philosophy, the more strenuously they quibble over their differences. Look at all the violence throughout history between Catholic and Protestant, between Shia and Sunni. If you want to see a quarrel, ask a free-will Baptist and a non-free-will Baptist to discuss their differences.