

Indonesia's reputation as a stable, tolerant democracy is threatened as radical Islamists claim blasphemy in the trial of Jakarta's Christian governor Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, commonly known as Ahok. He is the first Christian in fifty years to govern Jakarta. Indonesia is home to the world's largest Muslim population, but it also has sizeable influential Christian, Hindu, and Buddhist minorities. In the 1960s President Suharto signed a decree banning provocative political discourse on ethnicity, race and religion in an attempt to maintain public order, and racial and religious harmony. A minor comment by Governor Ahok has been taken out of context and construed as blasphemy by political opponents seeking to discredit him. His Chinese ethnicity has also been used against him with chants such as, ‘Go back to China.’ Ahok has been praised for reforms he accomplished in Jakarta. He is supported by Indonesia's president Joko Widodo.
Crosswinds Prayer Trust was founded in 1994, at Nailsea, near Bristol in the South-west of England by Canon John Simons. Its aim is to mobilise, inform, connect and equip people in Christian Prayer...
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