Always wanted to start a story or a blog that way. Actually, I was in an Indonesian jail yesterday, although thankfully its was only for a visit.

I'm here in Jakarta, as part of a trip looking at terrorism and radicalism in Southeast Asia. One of the big issues in Indonesia--traditionally an overwhelmingly moderate Muslim country--is whether a more militant form of Islam is on the rise, at least in some quarters.

So I went to Jakarta's main city jail to interview Rizieq Syihab, head of a hard-line group known as the Islamic Defenders' Front. Syihab is on trial for allegedly exhorting his followers to attack a religious tolerance rally, which included members of the Ahmadiyah minority sect of Islam. Here's his picture from the group's website (which is in Indonesian):

Indonesian jails aren't like American jails, even if this place was the equivalent of a pre-sentencing holding cell. We arrived without an appointment, bearing some small gifts like fruit and water as a courtesy and in recognition of the coming holy month of Ramadan.

We dropped our cell phones and walked right up to Syihab's room--cell would be the wrong word--where we found his followers milling about and, inside, more followers apparently listening to his instruction. It was hard to tell who was a prisoner and who was a visitor. After a wait of 10 minutes or so, we were ushered inside, where Syihab was seated cross-legged on a carpet. In front of him was a small table, with an anti-Ahmadiyah sign on it.

Syihab dismissed the violence two months ago as an "incident" and blamed his captivity on the U.S. Embassy here, which he claims pressured the Indonesian government to arrest him. There were the predictable anti-American and anti-Israel tirades. Several aides took advantage of my presence to make snickering comparisons to U.S. detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. "This is paradise!" one follower laughed.

Syihab faces five and a half years in prison if convicted. His group says Ahmadiyah, which does not believe Mohammad is the final prophet, is a corruption of Islam and should be banned or forced to declare itself a seperate religion.

The attack on the tolerance rally, and recent government moves under pressure to restrict Ahmadiyah, have raised worries about religious tolerance in this traditionally tolerant country.