There were emotional scenes in court on the first day of the blasphemy trial of Jakarta's governor, a Christian of Chinese descent.

A Muslim convert is accused of breaking an Asbo by touring London preaching Sharia Law to members of the public, a court heard.

A bomb explosion in the Coptic Christian cathedral complex in the Egyptian capital Cairo has killed at least 25 people, officials say. Dozens of others were injured in the blast in a chapel adjoining St Mark's cathedral during a Sunday service.

Islamic leaders in Australia have backed a campaign to produce an alternative to Peppa Pig set in a "predominantly Muslim town". The ANIC encouraged parents to raise funds for TV that supports Islamic values.

Saudi Women are still not permitted to drive cars, with this being ruled by Wahhibist scholars as "haram", or forbidden, due to the requirement for women to maintain covering, and the threat that they would have to interact with men outside their families.

Today it was reported that a Saudi woman who posted a picture of herself in public without a hijab faced outrage. One man said, "Kill her and throw her corpse to the dogs."

Exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who lives under constant protection, has told AFP that Islamic fundamentalism has destroyed Bangladeshi society.

Powerful testimony from Muslim women has been published by MPs as part of their investigation into sharia, while activists have warned that its approach so far has favoured those who support sharia councils.

An atheist's request for a personalized license plate saying "IM GOD" was denied by the state of Kentucky, which said it might distract other drivers, and would be in bad taste.

Pope Francis has declared that priests have the permanent right from now on to forgive abortions.

In a Facebook post, self-proclaimed prophet Lethebo Rabalago claims a pesticide called Doom can heal people.

Detained in Dubai, an organisation that assists victims of injustice in the UAE, has warned against reporting rape or other crimes in the country because of the "manipulation when it comes to criminal accusations" and "racist" preconceptions against Western tourists.

A British tourist has been arrested and charged with illegal "extra-marital sex" in Dubai after telling police she had been gang raped.

A Muslim police chaplain has faced criticism after he reportedly said women commit "a major sin" if they refuse to have sex with their husbands.

Pope Francis has ruled out a woman ever serving as a priest in the Roman Catholic church.

An Indonesian woman has been caned in front of a jeering crowd on Monday after being accused of "standing too close to her boyfriend".

In a submission to the Joint Committee on Human Rights, the National Secular Society warned that religion's role in state education is impeding the rights and freedoms of children and young people growing up in the UK.

Saudi Arabia's highest Islamic figure, the grand mufti, denounced the call to abolish guardianship as a crime against Islam. On the other hand, a number of key religious figures supported ending guardianship on the basis that the system does not have a grounding in Islam.

Thousands of ex-Muslims in Britain are living in fear of violent revenge for abandoning the Islamic faith while others are afraid to admit they no longer believe, a support group for ex-Muslims has said.

An ideological battle has broken out at a New Stevenston school over whether pupils should be made to attend religious services.

A former mayor who "dedicated his life to Jesus" repeatedly sexually assaulted a four-year-old girl and blamed her for being a "willing participant".

An episode of Fireman Sam in which one character appears to tread on a page from the Koran has been withdrawn.

The video depicts a Saudi woman being forced to reconcile with her abusive husband. It shows the woman being beaten by her husband before he orders her to leave the home. She then goes to a shelter and is told the best thing she can do is reconcile with her husband.

Catholics in Philadelphia who are divorced and civilly remarried will be welcome to accept Holy Communion as long as they abstain from sex.

Richard Dawkins has said people who think atheists are violent because of their lack of belief "don't know what violence means".

Religion is on the decline in the UK, but any attempt to suggest that non-believers simply have a different kind of faith is misplaced. Our values are rooted in everyday joys.

The number of people who say they have no religion is escalating and significantly outweighs the Christian population in England and Wales, according to new analysis.

The Equality and Human Rights Commission has been asked by the Department for Education to investigate an independent Islamic school that segregated its staff by gender.

Sir Michael Wilshaw has warned that leaders in some independent Islamic schools are continuing to undermine British values, after inspectors found more evidence of gender segregation.

A liberal blogger who criticised Islamism on his Facebook page has been hacked to death by attackers wielding machetes in Bangladesh.

A man who is facing jail in Russia for writing "there is no God" has dismissed his prosecution as an "absurd farce". Viktor Krasnov, 38, also added that the Bible consisted of "fairytales" during an heated online discussion

A US school district that allowed bibles to be distributed is considering removing all religious materials after a charity announced plans to also provide pupils with books on atheism and Satan.

A court in Saudi Arabia has sentenced a man to 10 years in prison and 2,000 lashes for expressing his atheism in hundreds of social media posts.

Religion brainwashed me into doing irrational and emotionally self-damaging things that I would have easily recognized as primitive and harmful were it not for my indoctrination. Of all the practices I look back on with horror, this was the worst.

I was raised in 3 Muslim majority countries and arrived in North America in my mid-20s. Two years after I settled in Canada, September 11 happened. Nineteen hijackers acting in the name of my parents' religion flew fuel-laden airliners into the World Trade Center, killing thousands.

Boys should not be circumcised until they are old enough to choose for themselves, doctors in Denmark have said. The Danish Medical Association said should be "an informed, personal choice".

John David Brock, 60, regularly attended the church which interprets the scripture verse Mark 16:18 literally. "They will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well," (NIV).

The horrific terrorist attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris have led to speculation as to whether the killers were lone wolves or tied to ISIS or Al-Qaeda. Although Al-Qaeda in Yemen has taken credit for the attack, it is unclear how closely the affiliate actually directed the operation.

Although IS is certainly an Islamic movement, it is neither typical nor mired in the distant past, because its roots are in Wahhabism, a form of Islam practised in Saudi Arabia that developed only in the 18th century.