Antonius Richmond Bawengan, 58, was found guilty of distributing books and leaflets that “spread hatred about Islam” and sentenced to five years for blasphemy.
Islamic hard-liners shouted during the rioting that the man should have received the death penalty. Anti-riot police fired into the air to disperse the crowd.
The violence started in front of the District Court in Temanggung where the trial was held and spread to surrounding neighborhoods, police spokesman Col. Djahartono said.
Witnesses said at least nine people were rushed to the hospital with injuries and police led away some protesters for questioning.
The mob set two churches on fire and threw rocks at a third and a school building. They also torched a police truck, three cars and six motorcycles. Calm was restored about four hours later.
A priest in Temanggung saw his church being burned, the windows trashed by the mob, said Windyatmoko Bernardus, a Catholic priest in a nearby town who is a member of the same order.
“My friend was beaten up by the mob before being rescued and taken to a military post,” Bernardus said.
Djahartono said that police, with back-up from the army, were guarding the town, adding the situation was gradually returning to normal.
Police also said on Tuesday they had arrested two suspects in connection with the mob attack on followers of the Ahmadi movement that was captured by dozens of cameras and distributed by local media and social network sites.
The footage showed the Ahmadi followers apparently being bludgeoned to death while heavily outnumbered police watched from the sidelines.
Only six religions or beliefs are officially recognized in Indonesia — Islam, Protestant and Catholic Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism and Confucianism.
Indonesia’s constitutional court upheld the blasphemy law last year as not limiting religious freedom and vital to religious harmony in the secular nation. Activists argued the law discriminates against believers outside the mainstream of six officially recognized faiths.
They also say the law is used largely to defend Islam, the dominant religion of Indonesia’s 235 million people.
