Arvin Fikriansyah, Palu – A last-minute reprieve for three Indonesian Christians on death row has been welcomed by activists and relatives as they geared up to fight for a commutation of their sentences.
Indonesian authorities granted a stay of execution for Fabianus Tibo, Dominggus da Silva and Marianus Riwu, who were found guilty in 2001 of violence against Muslims in Central Sulawesi, minutes before they were to be shot.
Police said that officials were too busy preparing for celebrations ahead of Indonesia's Independence Day on August 17, so the men would have to be executed by firing squad, probably three days afterwards.
The wife of Tibo, Nurlin Kasiala, thanked the government.
"I am very thankful to the Indonesian national police chief for delaying my husband's death sentence," she told AFP.
"I am going to continue fighting until my husband is pardoned from execution because I have no doubt that he is innocent from having taken part in violence in Poso," she said, referring to the area affected by the religious conflict.
The trio's case is sensitive in Indonesia, where three Islamic militants are also on death row for their roles in the 2002 Bali bombings, which killed 202 people. They are to be executed on August 22 unless they request a case review.
The execution of the three Christians would have been the first carried out by Indonesia this year.
Amnesty International, along with other critics of the Poso case, have said the men's original trial was unfair. Angry Muslim mobs besieged the court during their trial and there were reports of intimidation of judges and their legal team.
Amnesty hailed the decision by the government and urged it "to immediately transform this act of clemency into the commutation of their death sentences," it said in an e-mail to AFP.
The reprieve was granted after Pope Benedict XVI dispatched Friday a request for clemency to Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, though officials in the world's most populous Muslim nation denied there was a connection.
George Aditjondro, an analyst who has done extensive research on the Central Sulawesi religious conflict, which saw some 1,000 deaths in 2000-01, said the government may have considered both foreign and domestic protests.
"Perhaps international pressure played a hand in the decision but there was also strong support domestically" for the stay of execution, he told AFP, referring to protests this week by thousands of Christians.
He also said that the president must have taken into account that the executions "have the potential to trigger even bigger communal conflict."
A government-brokered peace pact came into force in 2001 in Central Sulawesi but intermittent violence mostly targeting Christians, who live in roughly equal numbers with Muslims there, has persisted.
Protestant priest Yance Taihatu also welcomed the reprieve but warned that the government still needed to devise a permanent solution to end ongoing unrest.
"This is a dilemma because for sure there will pro and anti reactions to the delay. The government must meticulously analyze this matter although they are now facing a dead end," he said. "This is a cul-de-sac. The president is in a cul-de-sac."
Johnson Panjaitan, who heads the Jakarta-based Indonesian Legal Aid and Human Rights Association, also said any pardon must be granted "in the context of a package that can comprehensively solve conflict in Poso."
The three death row inmates in the Poso case have already exhausted all legal avenues of appeal, including an appeal for clemency from the president. In theory, Yudhoyono could still grant them a pardon.