(CNSNews.com) - Indonesian Christians have welcomed the imprisonment of Islamic militants convicted of attacks, including the beheading of three Christian schoolgirls, but they said the Christian minority in the world's most populous Muslim nations continues to face difficulties.

A court in Jakarta on Monday sentenced six men to prison terms ranging from 10 to 19 years for their roles in attacks on Christians in the eastern province during 2005 and 2006, Indonesian media reported.

At the time, the attacks raised fears that Islamists were trying to reignite interreligious violence in Sulawesi and another Indonesian province, Maluku, in which thousands were killed between 1999 and 2002.

Christians and Muslims died in the clashes, which experts attributed to a range of factors, including economic competition and religious differences, among them allegations of Christian missionary activity. Islamist jihadists shipped in from Indonesia's most populous island, Java, and carried out attacks against Christians.

Government-sponsored peace agreements eventually were signed in both provinces, although sporadic eruptions of violence have continued in the years since.

The South Jakarta District Court sentenced the six men under anti-terror legislation introduced after an al-Qaeda-linked terrorist network, Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), killed 202 people, mostly foreign tourists, on the resort island of Bali in 2002.

Three of the men were convicted in connection with the October 2005 murder of the girls, aged between 15 and 17, who were accosted as they walked to school and decapitated with machetes.

A fourth girl, who was severely injured but survived, said there had been six attackers, wearing black clothing and masks. Three other men were tried earlier, and sentenced last March to prison terms ranging from 14 to 20 years.

The killers, at least some of whom have been linked by police to JI, had clearly intended to send a message to the area's Christians: They placed the girls' heads in plastic bags, one of which was left at the door of a church in a nearby town, along with a note threatening to kill 100 more Christian teens. A Jakarta court later heard that the militants regarded the murdered girls as "Ramadan trophies."

Just over a week after the beheadings, two Sulawesi high school students were shot and injured, and on the last day of 2005, eight people were killed in a bombing of a busy meat market in the province frequented by Christians. The following October, a Protestant pastor was shot dead while shopping. Monday's sentencing related to all four attacks.

"For the Christians in Sulawesi this sentencing brings closure to their appeal for justice," Open Doors International minister-at-large Paul Estabrooks said Tuesday.

"However, emotionally it does little because they [especially the fourth girl, who survived] have already gone on record as forgiving those who had committed the crimes."

Estabrooks said finalization of the trial will prompt Indonesian Christian to be more watchful over the Christmas period, a time when Christians have frequently been targeted in previous years.

"Obviously those sentenced do not feel justice (before God) was accomplished so it could continue to inflame sectarian violence in the region," he said.

"Open Doors requests Christians to again pray for our brothers and sisters in Sulawesi throughout this Christmas season."

The extremists sentenced this week and last March could have faced the death penalty. Instead, they received jail terms of 20 years or less. "In the Indonesian justice system they could conceivably be freed in a fraction of that time," Jakarta-based security consultant Ken Conboy said this week.

In the earlier case, prosecutors reportedly did not seek the death penalty because the killers had expressed remorse and the victims' families had forgiven them.

In a 2001 trial, by contrast, three Catholics were sentenced to death after being convicted of inciting violence against Muslims in Sulawesi in 2000, including an attack on an Islamic school that killed 70 people.

During and after their trial, the three denied the charges and human rights groups questioned the fairness of the proceedings.

The three men were executed by firing squad in September 2006, despite calls by former Indonesian president Abdurrahman Wahid -- a prominent Islamic cleric -- for a stay of execution and an independent inquiry to probe the killings.

Churches closed

In other parts of Indonesia, Christians continue to face instances of harassment from Islamists who have forced the closure of scores of churches in recent years.

Extremists typically claim the churches are operating illegally and are often supported by local officials.

On Monday, the Compass Direct Christian news agency reported that radical Muslims in the past two weeks had forced the closure of a Protestant church and a Catholic church, both in western Java. According to Open Doors, at least 25 Indonesian places of worship had been attacked or forced to close this year.

A spokesman for the Indonesian Communion of Churches (PGI) said from Jakarta Tuesday that things were currently quiet in Sulawesi, but elsewhere in the country Christians had seen no letup in the shutdown of churches by Islamic hardliners and local government authorities.

"Far from helping members of minority faiths, the Indonesian government has been making it harder for Christians to practice their faith," Christian Freedom International president Jim Jacobson said in an article published Tuesday.

See also:
Beheading of Christian Schoolgirls Sparks Concerns About Religious Strife (Nov. 1, 2005)
Al-Qaeda Linked To Violence Against Christians in Indonesia (Dec. 12, 2001)

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