Algeria: Turning churches into mosques ?
Notre-Dame d’Afrique in Algiers.
An Algerian Salafi leader is calling for all Christian churches on Algerian territory and all synagogues to be closed and converted to mosques “wherever possible”. Quoted by press agency Fides on May 11, Abdelfattah Hamadache Zeraoui claims that this would be “a legitimate reaction faced with the episodes of Islamophobia that are taking place in numerous countries of Europe, beginning with France.”
The preacher stated that “the Algerian people is Moslem and Islam is the only State religion.” He refused absolutely the creation of “non-Islamic pockets” in Algeria. Notre-Dame d’Afrique in Algiers and the cathedral of Saint-Augustin in Annmaba he calls “residue of the colonial era” of which the country must be “liberated.”
An Algerian law of 2006 already forbids “proselytism” but according to Fides, Moslem conversion to Christianity has been on the rise for years in Algeria “and not only in the region of Kabylie.” Article 2 of the Constitution of the Algerian Republic stipulates that Islam is the religion of State, but Article 36 “guarantees” nonetheless the inviolability of freedom of conscience and opinion.
(Sources: kipa-apic.ch – Fides – DICI no.316 June 5, 2015)
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