The case of Lia Eden, a cult leader on trial for insulting Islam. If it weren’t serious it would be funny.

A transvestite contest causes a stir in Sumatra.

The Indonesian state and political system is a peculiar compromise between secularism and Islamism. The two are often in conflict, naturally, and it is often not clear which one has the upper hand at any particular time. While attempts by Islamist political parties to enforce sharia law consistently fail to win support at the national level, other, more localised forms of Islamism, or creeping Islamicisation as we like to call it, have gained ground in 2005.

According to the Freedom House annual report on democracy in the world there exists one democracy in the middle east. Despite the regular attacks and hatred that this lonely democracy in a sea of Muslim terror and repression attracts from many in the West Israel remains the only bright spot on an otherwise darkly painted canvas.

Indian Hindus often seem to prostrate themselves before Islam and find common cause with Muslims in their dislike of the West, one such of these being the Hindu columnist Sandhya Jain.

A picture of a Christmas service in Java.

Islamic leaders in the Indonesian province of Aceh have claimed that aid and charity workers are secretly attempting to convert the Acehenese to Christianity.

The Muhammadiyah organisation in Indonesia, the second largest Muslim social group in the country and of a modernist bent, has offered buildings it owns such as schools and halls for the use of Christians on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

The Islamic Defenders Front plan to help guard churches at Christmas.

Good and Evil in Islam.