<p>Murhali Barda, head of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in Bekasi, a city to the east of Jakarta, was convicted of "unpleasant deeds" in an attack on a priest and a Christian elder last September.<br /><br />Sentencing Barda to five-and-a-half months in prison, Judge Wasdi Permana said he had "misused his authority as a cleric. He had urged protesters to disrupt the church's worship activities."<br /><br />Separately, 12 others were jailed for between five and seven months over the attack, in which one of the Christians was beaten with a stick and the other was stabbed.<br />Two hundred radical Muslims shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greater) and "Free Murhali" outside the court as 350 police officers guarded the trial.<br /><br />Barda rejected the court's finding and vowed to appeal."I should have been freed. The accusations were all wrong," he said after the trial.<br /><br />Barda has previously said he had taken part in protests against Christian church services as a Bekasi resident, not as a member of FPI, which is known to have carried out armed attacks on moderates and minorities.<br /><br />The FPI does not formally advocate mass attacks, but does share the jihadists' agenda of implementing sharia law in Indonesia.<br /><br />Some members have been arrested in connection with terror plots but the group has always maintained they were acting on their own.<br /><br />Religious violence has been on the rise in Indonesia in recent months, mainly by Muslims, who make up around 80 percent of the country's 240 million people, against minority groups.<br /><br />An Islamist mob beat and stoned to death three members of a Muslim minority sect in West Java this month.<br /><br />Two days later another mob of enraged Muslims rampaged through the streets of Temanggung, Central Java, and set fire to churches after a Christian man was jailed for insulting Islam.</p>
<p>Murhali Barda, head of the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) in Bekasi, a city to the east of Jakarta, was convicted of "unpleasant deeds" in an attack on a priest and a Christian elder last September.<br /><br />Sentencing Barda to five-and-a-half months in prison, Judge Wasdi Permana said he had "misused his authority as a cleric. He had urged protesters to disrupt the church's worship activities."<br /><br />Separately, 12 others were jailed for between five and seven months over the attack, in which one of the Christians was beaten with a stick and the other was stabbed.<br />Two hundred radical Muslims shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is Greater) and "Free Murhali" outside the court as 350 police officers guarded the trial.<br /><br />Barda rejected the court's finding and vowed to appeal."I should have been freed. The accusations were all wrong," he said after the trial.<br /><br />Barda has previously said he had taken part in protests against Christian church services as a Bekasi resident, not as a member of FPI, which is known to have carried out armed attacks on moderates and minorities.<br /><br />The FPI does not formally advocate mass attacks, but does share the jihadists' agenda of implementing sharia law in Indonesia.<br /><br />Some members have been arrested in connection with terror plots but the group has always maintained they were acting on their own.<br /><br />Religious violence has been on the rise in Indonesia in recent months, mainly by Muslims, who make up around 80 percent of the country's 240 million people, against minority groups.<br /><br />An Islamist mob beat and stoned to death three members of a Muslim minority sect in West Java this month.<br /><br />Two days later another mob of enraged Muslims rampaged through the streets of Temanggung, Central Java, and set fire to churches after a Christian man was jailed for insulting Islam.</p>