Acts of violence and intolerance against Christians in Indonesia almost doubled in 2011, with an Islamist campaign to close down churches symbolizing the plight of the religious minority.

The worst is perhaps yet to come if authorities continue to overlook the threat of extremism, said a representative from the Jakarta-based Wahid Institute, a Muslim organization that promotes tolerance.

Authorities in eastern Uzbekistan have warned local churches not to allow youngsters and children to attend their worship services and not to carry out missionary activities or “proselytism”, the word for evangelism, local Christians and activists said.

The news emerged after Deputy Head of Administration Saidibrahim Saynazirov spoke with church leaders in the city of Angren, 110 kilometers (70 miles) east of Uzbekistan’s capital Tashkent.

A 16-year-old Rhode Island atheist said Thursday she is confident the law is on her side in her fight over a prayer mural that she wants removed from the auditorium of her high school.

Ahlquist sued in federal court in April, saying the mural is offensive to non-Christians.

In a test case of religious intolerance in the world’s largest Muslim-majority country, an Indonesian mayor is defying court rulings by pushing for a decree to block Christians from opening churches on streets with Islamic names.

Members of the Taman Yasmin Indonesian Christian Church in the West Java town of Bogor are, after three years, still forced to worship on the sidewalk outside their building, protected by police.

Hundreds of other churches scattered through the former Hindu kingdom of Nepal have faced government discrimination.

Five years after it abolished Hinduism as the state religion, Nepal is working on a new criminal code forbidding a person from one faith to “convert a person or abet him to change his religion.”

Article 160 of the proposed code also says no one will be allowed to do anything or behave in any way that could cause a person from a caste, community or creed to lose faith in his/her traditional religion or convert to a different religion. The proposal would also prohibit conversion “by offering inducements or without inducement,” and preaching “a different religion or faith with any other intent.”

Florida Pastor Terry Jones, whose threat to burn Islam’s holy book on the anniversary of the September 11 attacks last year provoked widespread condemnation, has been banned from visiting Britain, Reuters reports.

Malaysia — In this Muslim-majority country, it’s OK to be Christian, Buddhist or Hindu. But not Shiite.

California lawyer and dedicated atheist Michael Newdow is making another run at “In God We Trust,” with a new Supreme Court petition challenging the national motto, says the Kansas City Star

From our Religious Insanity file: An armed Christian organization, Right Wing Extreme, will protect a church that is planning to host an “International Burn a Quran Day” on the ninth anniversary of September 11, the church’s pastor said on Tuesday.

The Dove World Outreach Center, in Gainesville, Florida, says it is hosting the event to remember 9/11 victims and to take a stand against Islam. With promotions on its website and Facebook page, the nondenominational church invites Christians to burn the Muslim holy book.

Dove World Outreach Center Pastor Terry Jones has accepted the support of Right Wing Extreme, which he said offered to come to the church with between 500 and 2,000 men on September 11. He described the organization as an armed civilian militia group.

“There is a need for this protection. It is absolutely necessary in light of the death and terror threats we have received,” Jones said in an e-mail to CNN.

Muslims and many other Christians, including some evangelicals, are fighting the church’s plan to burn the Quran.

We can be sure of this: ‘Pastor’ Terry Jones might as well burn his Bible — since he either has not read it or does not intent to obey its teachings.

A Christian student in the US has been told she will not be permitted to graduate unless she changes her beliefs.

Jennifer Keeton, 24, is studying for a degree in counselling at Augusta State University in Georgia. But University chiefs say her beliefs about sexual ethics do not conform to the prevailing views of the counselling profession, and she much change or get out.

She has been ordered to undergo a re-education plan involving “remediation” assignments and “diversity sensitivity training”.

She must report back on how the re-education has influenced her beliefs. If she refuses, she has been told she faces being thrown off her degree course.

She has also been urged to attend a homosexual parade in Augusta.

American pro-freedom group, the Alliance Defense Fund (ADF), has come to the student’s aid.

Supported by the ADF, she is suing the University for interfering with her religious liberty.

Hundreds of Muslims from outside the area where a 600-member church meets in West Java staged a protest there to call for its closure this month in an attempt to portray local opposition.

Demonstrators from 16 Islamic organizations, including the hard-line Islamic Defenders Front (FPI), gathered on Feb. 15 to demand a stop to all activities by the Galilea Protestant Church (GPIB) in the Galaxy area of Bekasi City.

While Muslim leaders criticized the Nov. 29 vote in Switzerland that banned construction of minarets, they don’t support Christians who want to build churches in some Islamic countries.

Restrictions in Egypt have exacerbated sectarian violence and discrimination, say Copts, a 2,000 year old denomination that comprises about 10 percent of the population.

Police say assailants have scrawled a Nazi slogan and hung pig feet on a mosque in southern France.

Assailants sporadically scrawl anti-Muslim or anti-Semitic graffiti on religious sites, cultural centers and cemeteries in France — home to western Europe’s largest populations of both Muslims and Jews, AP writes

A dancing elephant statue at the Calgary Zoo has kicked up controversy after a Christian group condemned the figure as an inappropriate religious icon.

Zoo officials say they have no plans to replace the Ganesh statue — which has stood near the elephant enclosure for at least two years — despite calls for its removal from Concerned Christians Canada.

Grahame Newton, the zoo’s director of corporate services, says the Ganesh statue isn’t a religious icon, rather a cultural symbol that shows the tie between the elephants and Asian culture.