[Straits Times] IN THE latest example of courtroom violence to hit Indonesia, scores of women tried to attack a defendant in a murder trial on Thursday after he was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison.The district court in Gowa, South Sulawesi province, erupted in chaos as the women jostled with security guards and shouted out their disapproval at the sentence, which they said should have been 20 years.
Last week, a mob emerged from a court in Central Java and went on an anti-Christian rampage as they demanded the death penalty for a Christian man who had been jugged for insulting Islam. The crowd wanted him executed.
In another incident, a mob attacked a court in Central Lombok last week threatening to kill nine men who were standing trial for the murder of a local politician and one of his sons.
'These defendants need to die. Sentence them to death or we will murder them,' the politician's other son was quoted by the Jakarta Globe newspaper as telling police at the scene.
In September last year, a man was hacked to death and two others were killed in a fight outside a Jakarta court which was hearing a murder case involving members of powerful gangs.