Trying Times
Christians face a wave of persecution in
World Magazine
July 12 2008
Jill Nelson
After being yanked from a bus just
outside of her hometown in
Kouider now faces three years in prison
for "practicing non-Muslim religious rites without a license." She is
one among dozens of believers arrested this year on religious grounds. Many
Christians fear ominous times are ahead for Christians in Algeria, a signatory
of the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights and—at over three times the
size of Texas—Africa's second-largest country.
This recent wave of persecution
stems from a February 2006 law, Ordinance 06-03, that
restricts worship by non-Muslims and creates steep penalties for proselytizing.
Coupled with the arrests are closures of more than half of the country's 50
Protestant churches—all ordered within the past six months.
"This is the most pressure Christians have faced in
Many Algerians are trying to
understand why a law that was established more than two years ago was not
implemented until recently. Some analysts attribute the sweeping changes to
political currents: Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika needs the support of Islamists if he's going to
change the constitution and run for a third term in 2009.
Christian leaders say the crackdown
is intended to squelch a Christian movement that continues to grow through
indigenous church plants and Christian satellite broadcasts throughout the
region. Conservative estimates place the number of Algerian believers at close
to 10,000, but some Christian organizations claim there are as many as 30,000
mostly Protestant Christians—a substantial increase from a few hundred in the
early 1980s but a small percentage of the country's 34 million people.
Algerian leaders say the new law
applies to Muslims as well and is designed to prevent extremism in the wake of
two deadly suicide bombings in 2007.
Radwan Masmoudi,
founder of the U.S.-based Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy, says
But Algerian believers say that
only non-Muslims are barred from sharing their faith—proof of discriminatory
practices by the state. "They are afraid about what God is doing in
One convert to Christianity and
church leader says he is a regular target of the police. Already convicted of
evangelism and blasphemy this year, he will soon go on trial for a third time.
"I have the feeling they are following me all the time," Rachid Muhammad Essaghir told
Compass Direct news service. Local police found a box of Christian books in his
possession a year ago and charged him with "distributing documents to
shake the faith of a Muslim."
In a separate incident, on May 9
police arrested 37-year-old Essaghir and five other
men after a prayer meeting at the leader's home. Four of the six men were
convicted, and Essaghir received a six-month
suspended sentence and a fine equal to more than $3,000. Friends of the leader
say he has no plans to stop his evangelistic activities.
While some Algerian Christians
worry about the negative impact of these restrictive laws, others point out the
positives: "This is the good thing in hard times of persecution," a
Christian leader in
http://www.worldmag.com/articles/14173