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Islamic Tolerance Alert. "Algeria: Court pressures woman to renounce Christ," from Compass Direct News, May 23:
ISTANBUL, May 23 (Compass Direct News) – An Algerian public prosecutor has demanded a three-year sentence for a convert to Christianity in western Algeria for practicing her faith “without license.”
Habiba Kouider, 35, was plucked off an inter-city bus outside of her home town of Tiaret on March 29 when police found several Bibles and books on Christianity in her hand bag. Held for 24 hours and interrogated by police regarding her conversion, Kouider was eventually brought before a state prosecutor.
“You reinstate Islam and I will [drop the case]; if you persist in sin you will undergo the lightning of justice,” the prosecutor told her, according to French daily Le Figaro.
Algerian daily el Watan reported on Wednesday (May 21) that Kouider “refused to give up her new faith under the pressure,” prompting the prosecutor to bring charges against her. She is accused of “practicing non-Muslims religious rites without a license,” according to a copy of the written charge obtained by Compass.
“It’s as if they are saying that if someone becomes a Christian they have to get permission,” said one Christian from Tiaret.
A Tiaret city court judge reportedly mocked Kouider for her conversion four years prior.
“The priests made you drink the water which leads to paradise?” asked the judge, according to a May 20 article in Le Figaro.
Mocking and conflating baptism and John 4:4-26. We're told Islam respects all monotheistic religions and prophets, but clearly all bets are off once one tries to convert to from Islam to one of those faiths.
At the hearing, Kouider’s defense lawyer told the court that the charge against her client did not exist in the law.
“There is no trace of a possible reason to try individuals for the ‘practice of non-Muslim worship without authorization,’” Khelloudja Khalfoun said, according to el Watan. She added, “Which authority, moral or administrative, is entitled to authorize the practice of this or that religion?”
Baseless Charge
A well known human rights lawyer and a native of Tizi Ouzou, 200 miles west of Tiaret, Khalfoun agreed to take Kouider’s case after local lawyers refused to represent the Christian.
Passed in February 2006, a law governing non-Muslim worship has been cited in a number of arrests and trials of Algerian Christians this year. The law, known as Ordinance 06-03, outlaws proselytism of Muslims, as well as the distribution, production and storing of material used for this purpose.
Khalfoun said she believed there was no evidence with which to try her client for proselytism, outlawed under Article 11 of Ordinance 06-03.
“When my client was stopped, she was not preaching,” the lawyer told the court. “She did not distribute Bibles. She was alone on a bus.”
The public prosecutor countered with arguments that Kouider’s Christian literature was meant for more than personal use, based on the fact that she was carrying several copies of the same book.
“What were you doing with a dozen copies of the same book?” he asked, according to el Watan. “You planned to distribute them, to preach the Christian word.”
Algerian human rights defenders said that charges against Kouider were baseless.
“Having Bibles in one’s possession is not an offense,” Mustapha Bouchachi of the Algerian League of Human Rights told el Watan. “Absolutely no legal text exists that requires such an authorization [to practice non-Muslim religious rites].”
The Tiaret court is scheduled to deliver Kouider’s verdict on Tuesday (May 27), the same day as the first hearing in the trial of six other Tiaret Christians detained this month. Picked up on May 9 while leaving a prayer meeting and released 24 hours later, the converts are charged with “distributing documents to shake the faith of Muslims.”
‘Witch Hunt’
A total of 10 Christians visiting or residing in Tiaret have been detained or tried on religious grounds since January. More than half of the country’s 50 Protestant churches, many of which meet in homes, have been ordered to close down.
In addition, a barrage of news articles has warned of sinister plans by Christians to evangelize Algeria.
Posted by Marisol at May 24, 2008 8:16 PM
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The hypocrisy of the zombie cult is just maddening! Let's play a little game and do some minor edits to the last two paragraphs:
A total of 1000 Muslims visiting or residing in Dearborn, Michigan have been detained or tried on religious grounds since January. More than half of the country’s 5000 mosques, many of which meet in homes, have been ordered to close down.In addition, a barrage of news articles has warned of sinister plans by Muslims to convert Americans.
How long, in days, would it take the OIC, ACLU, CAIR, and all the other zombie minions to bring lawsuits in the US Courts, plus complaints to UNHRC?
I'd take a pretty good guess that the USA would be dragged in front of the UN General Assembly pretty darn quick and threatened.
Be gone Islam!
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at May 24, 2008 8:57 PM
So being a Christian there would be a privilege like driving, or owning firearms would be here?
Hey, that gives me an idea - why not have licenses, or better still, permits, for practicing Islam? Just as one can't light fireworks anywhere anytime just on a whim, or hunt quayle, or dump toxic waste, or do any number of things, similarly, why not regulate the practice of Islam by having associated permits and licenses, and monitoring the issue closely?
Sorta like a reverse jiziya
Posted by: Infidel Pride at May 24, 2008 11:30 PM
...a barrage of news articles has warned of sinister plans by Christians to evangelize Algeria.
Algeria should be so lucky.
Posted by: traeh at May 25, 2008 12:13 AM
"“Having Bibles in one’s possession is not an offense,” Mustapha Bouchachi of the Algerian League of Human Rights told el Watan"
He is lying.
that is not what the Muslims in places like Iran say...they has imprisoned people for carrying
Bibles...
In Indonesia, the Muslims have killed people carrying Bibles.
In several countries, Christians carrying Bibles have been assaulted and killed.
throughout the Islamic world the act of carrying a Bible is considered offensive.
Posted by: pulsar182 at May 25, 2008 9:54 AM
When are the western countries going start requiring Muslims to have licenses to practice their religion?
Posted by: pulsar182 at May 25, 2008 3:23 PM
traeh, there is indeed a Jewish plot to put the whole world [including its Muslim parts] under a Jewish king. It's called Christianity, and got launched in the very shadow of the Jerusalem Temple itself (see Acts One and Two in the New Testament).
One by-product of Muslim immigration into the West has been apostasy from Islam--including conversion to Christianity. Evangelical churches in Turkey, Morocco, and Algeria were planted by erstwhile guest workers who went home. May a lot more of this happen.
Posted by: Kepha at May 25, 2008 4:34 PM
Sauce for the goose, sauce for the gander - License the "practice" of religious intolerance, genocide and mistreatment of women...........Oh, that would be.........Islam?
No, Radical Jihadi Extremist Intolerant Islamofacism perhaps.
Posted by: tanstaafl at May 25, 2008 8:11 PM
The more I see of stories like this the more I wonder if it might not be true that Christianity (and to a lesser extent, a collection of other religious and secular apostate trends) is gaining strength in the Islamic world. There are more apostates to find and more incentive for panicky regimes, which depend on Islam to control society, to root them out. These nations seem to be getting nervous about Christianity.
Posted by: Saul Wall at May 25, 2008 9:15 PM
Saul Wall
you're right.
Part of the reason is this: in the old days, most Muslims were illiterate. Most did not meet Christians (and even if they did, the Christians were terrified cowering dhimmis, often illiterate as well). So it wasn't that hard for the Muslim powers-that-be to prevent Muslims from ever coming into contact with foreign ideas. And the Bible wasn't in languages known to the Muslims, either.
These days the Bible has been translated into most of the major languages of the Muslim world, e.g. several varieties of everyday Arabic, together with Turkish, Indonesian, Urdu, Farsi, Dari. The New Testament is in Berber dialects and Kurdish. The list of such translations keeps expanding. (In Russia, the Muslim Tartars, greeted with a Bible in the Tartar language, are converting to Christianity in considerable numbers).
All or most of this translated material can be - and is - disseminated not just in print (which can be excluded by vigilant effort; and is unusable, still, for many Muslims because many, especially women, can't read) but in audio form. I mean everything from ipod/ internet downloads, to radio and satellite broadcasts, to teeny tiny easy-to-smuggle easy-to-hide cheap-to-run playback audio or video devices.
And in many places, people are listening.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at May 26, 2008 12:54 AM
Why didn't someone just tell her where to go, to get her "License to Practice Christianity?"
Posted by: Abscedere at May 26, 2008 1:26 AM
“It’s as if they are saying that if someone becomes a Christian they have to get permission,” said one Christian from Tiaret."
Not quite. It's as if they are saying that if someone wants to become a Christian, they can get a license. Big difference.
at May 26, 2008 1:30 AM
"Hey, that gives me an idea - why not have licenses, or better still, permits, for practicing Islam?"
I actually like that idea.
Those applying for it must undergo a rigorous mental stability exam and if they fail, heh heh, no Islam for them.
Posted by: abad at May 27, 2008 3:54 AM
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