"Law and Order" Politics against Missionaries

​​If you listen to the acting minister of religion, you might easily think you were hearing some Western "law and order" politicians concerned about the security and stability of their country.

But the statements are directed at Christian minorities accused of undermining the state, withdrawing from its control, and challenging the values and virtues of the majority society.

This is all happening in Algeria, where in recent weeks and months the state has been increasingly taking action against the "illegal" activities of Christian congregations. There were once 32 Protestant churches in Algeria, twelve of which have been closed in recent months by state authorities.

Prayer as an illegal act

The state is also taking action against individuals. On May 20, for instance, in West Algerian Tiaret a criminal proceeding was launched against governess Habiba Kouider. She converted to Christianity in 2004 and is active in a Protestant evangelical sect.

The 37-year-old is now facing three years in prison – if the public prosecutor gets his way – because she was found in possession of a dozen Bibles and religious manuals during a bus trip.

In the same city four persons were sentenced on June 3. They had organized a Christian prayer meeting in a private house, for which they have been accused of "illegally practicing a religious cult". They were given two to six-month suspended sentences with a fine of 1,000 to 2,000 euros.

Two other defendants were acquitted. They denied being converts to the Christian faith. Khelloudja Khlafoun, the defendants' attorney, appealed the verdict. She accused the court of sentencing the four who confessed, but acquitting the two defendants who did not.

On July 3, 2008, a court in Tissemsilt, 200 kilometers south of the capital Algier, handed two Algerian defendants a six-month suspended sentence and fined them around 1,600 euros. They were evangelical Christians.

Fear of "frenetic missionary zeal"

Living in Algeria at present are roughly 10,000 Protestant and 1,500 Catholic Christians, according to government figures. The unofficial number could be much higher. Some estimates claim that up to 30,000 Christians of different denominations live in the Maghreb state.

​​It is primarily the number of Protestants that seems to be on the rise. For one, this rise is the fruit of the "frenetic missionary zeal" of evangelical and other Protestants whose churches and sects originate predominantly from North America.

Converts see the assumption of another religious "identity" as a powerful means of setting themselves apart from the Arab-speaking majority in the country and challenging the Arab-Muslim "dominant culture" so frequently invoked in conservative circles. In Algeria it is not called the "dominant culture" but the "Algerian personality".

Seductive means

The Catholic and the traditional Protestant churches in the country have long maintained a good relationship with Muslim communities and have renounced any "proselytizing fervor".

But this relationship is now encumbered with the activities of radical Protestant sects, whose proselytizing efforts often make them seem like an elephant in the porcelain shop. More and more Christians from Europe and North American are coming to Algeria on missions.

At times they use dubious methods, for instance, promising potential converts visas to emigrate to prosperous Western countries.

The basis for the state's action against Christian groups is a law passed on February 28, 2006. It threatens those who "call on, force, or use seductive means to persuade a Muslim to convert to another religion" with two to five years in prison or a fine between 5,000 and 10,000 euros. The legal minimum wage in Algeria is around 100 euros a month.

Appeal against intolerance

Public opinion about the state's repressive acts is divided. On March 17, 2008, prominent intellectuals in Algier launched an "Appeal against Intolerance" in which they called for freedom of religion and conscience.

​​Among them are prominent and popular figures such as caricaturist (for the French-speaking newspaper Liberté, among others) Ali Dilem, critical historian of the Algerian war of independence Mohammed Harbi, and former chairman of the Algerian League of Human rights, Ali Yahia Abdenour. The appeal has already made quite a stir in the public debate.

Critics of the wave of legal proceedings do not in principle deny the state the right to supervise religious places of worship – in order to keep militant Islamists from gaining a foothold. They only wish the state would distinguish between the supervision of places of worship on one hand and the regulation of private beliefs and the freedom of personal conscience on the other hand.

Carrying Bibles or religious manuals as well as holding prayer meetings in private houses, in their view, falls solely in the area of individual religious freedom.

Bernard Schmid

© Qantara.de 2008

Translated from the German by Nancy Joyce

Qantara.de

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