Christians Stabbed, Beaten in Indonesia

Violence against Christians erupted in Indonesia yesterday, and the president—who has been criticized in the past for a failure to crack down on hard-line Muslim groups—called for immediate action and the arrest of those responsible. The Islamic Defenders Front is suspected of the attack on a worshiper and a minister, though it denies any involvement. The man was on his way to prayers when he was stabbed, and a female minister who came to his aid was beaten in the head with a wooden plank.

Indonesia, with the largest population of Muslims in the world, has a small extremist fringe that's growing in violence, the AP reports. The Islamic Defenders Front, which pushes for Islamic-based laws, is known for attacking transvestites or people considered blasphemous, with little intervention from police. The group has repeatedly warned members of a local Christian church against worshiping, going so far as to dump feces on their land.
(More Indonesia stories.)