Would that it were the case that Father Ragheed & 3 Companions were only fined a year ago today!

How sad is it that when one hears of the Religion of Peace fining Christians, it actually sounds like they are not so bad!

Posted by: A Simple Sinner at June 3, 2008 2:57 PM

The state-appointed Higher Islamic Council said Protestant evangelicals are secretly trying to divide Algerians to colonise the country.

. . .in the largely Muslim country of 33 million. . .

but here I thought Islam is the fastest growing religion, when it's actually shrinking - and they are obviously concerned!

And about that 'colonization' -

The 14th century historian Ibn-Khaldun, stated that [Princess] Kahina and her tribe, the Jerawa of the Aures Mountains in eastern Algeria and Tunisia, were Jewish. At the time of the Arab aggression, the Berbers were ruled by a Queen of Jewish descent. Her name was Kahina. The title Kahina meant Prophetess or soothsayer. Kahina – the brave Berber Princess/Queen held off the Arab hordes for twenty years. Charles-André Julien, in his History of North Africa believed that Kahina's resistance to the Arabs was "nurtured, as it seems, by Berber patriotism and Jewish faith."

- so, who colonized who when North Africa was Arabized?

Posted by: miira at June 3, 2008 3:26 PM

Won't Algeria become part of the Mediterannean union? And won't that be a back way into the European Union?

Posted by: Voltaire at June 3, 2008 5:36 PM

'2006 law forbids non-muslims from trying to convert muslims'

Now THAT is colonizing.

Are there laws that forbid muslims from trying to convert non-muslims?

What does the goverment say about this fair practice?

Posted by: alaskan1000 at June 3, 2008 6:12 PM

"The four men admitted they had converted to Christianity but rejected the charge against them - that they were holding an illegal religious ceremony when they were arrested."

I will bet they weren't hanging blind kids from the ceiling and trying to make them memorize the bible by beating them..

Posted by: pulsar182 at June 3, 2008 6:29 PM

What miira" put up could conceivably be of great use among the Berbers, as part of a campaign of support for them as an appeal for them to recognize that Islam is a vehicle of Arab supremacism, and Islam explains the problems that Berbers have always had with Arab linguistic and cultural imperialism.

And the Berbers have also suffered from the more traditional, economic and political imperialism, at Arab hands. The Berbers not only feel aggrieved, in the Kabyle, and elsewhere in North Africa, and in France, and this grievance should be turned against not only the Arabs, but against the Islam that they brought to North Africa, and imposed on the Berbers, and that is when the forced arabization, and primitivization, of the Berbers first began.

Many Berbers are startled to learn that St. Augustine's mother Monica was a Berber (or, more recently, that Edith Piaf's maternal grandmother was Berber). I read in a recent issue of "Le Monde" about the conversion, in France, of some Muslims, and a Berber girl explained that she first became interested in Christianity when she learned about Monica.

Use whatever it takes, but help lead the Berbers out of the Arab empire, and help some of those arabized Berbers (who think, wrongly, that they are Arabs) to rediscover their own Berber ancestry. Use, that is, the other, ethnic identity, either of Berbers now, or of those who think of themselves as Arabs but who are the descendants of Berbers (the genetic markers are very clear, as the work of French geneticists in Tunisia, such as a team with Dr. Semana, has shown). Yes, use genetics to make arabized Berbers conscious of their Berber heritage. Use resentment against Arab cultural imperialism. Make clear that Islam is and has always been the vehicle of Arab imperialism.

Go ahead. This is the way to proceed.

Posted by: Hugh at June 3, 2008 10:09 PM

can we send the Interpol after the Higher Islamic Council of Algeria whoever they may be?

Posted by: nacazo at June 3, 2008 10:58 PM

From the article:

"Some reports also suggest the men were accused of attempting to convert other Algerians to Christianity....

"A 2006 law forbids non-Muslims from trying to convert Muslims...".

Now, let's revisit the legendary 'Pact of Omar', shall we, paradigm for 'Rules for Dhimmis':

"(we will not) publicize practices of Shirk,

invite anyone to Shirk

or prevent any of our fellows from embracing Islam, if they choose to do so. " (NOTE: non-reciprocity - Muslims can 'convert' non-Muslims but non-Muslims are FORBIDDEN even to try - the traffic is supposed to be all one-way).

"(we will) refrain from erecting crosses on the outside of our churches
and demonstrating them and our books in public in Muslim fairways and markets.
We will not sound the bells in our churches, except discretely...".

A different version of the same requirements:

"We shall not manifest our religion publicly nor convert anyone to it.
"We shall not 
prevent any of our kin from entering Islam if they wish it." ...
"We shall not display our crosses or our books in the roads or markets of the 
Muslims. We shall use only clappers in our churches very softly...".

In other words: complete suppression of all visible and audible practice of any other faith except Islam, is required (and it should be noted that if any dhimmi is even suspected of breaking any one of the numerous, onerous, and humiliating 'Rules for Dhimmis', the Jihad resumes against the entire dhimmi community).

Now; if the BBC were doing their job properly they would include in their report at least a brief reference to the particular Rules for Dhimmis that I have just mentioned.

Even better: they would invite Mme Bat Yeor to present a program, on prime-time radio or TV in which she would read out the text of that Pact and give a brief commentary on the full significance of each clause and how it panned out in practice, and in what ways it was often elaborated upon; and then she would explain that many of the Rules for Dhimmis, whether officially 'on the books' or not, are even today being enforced in many regions of the Empire of Islam...including, of course, Algeria.

After Bat Yeor had spoken we would then hear from some of those Jews who, like her, had experienced life under Muslim rule - it might be interesting to hear from Yemeni or Kurdish or Persian Jews, those who were children in the 1920s and 1930s; and then one could hear from Coptic, and Maronite, and Assyrian Orthodox and Chaldean Catholic and Greek Orthodox (from Turkey) Christians, or Indonesian Christians and Buddhists and Hindus, or Pakistani and Bangladeshi and Malaysian Christians and Hindus, and Northern Nigerian and southern Sudanese African Christians, describing what has been happening to their communities, their religious leaders, and their places of worship, over the past thirty years.

Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at June 4, 2008 5:52 AM

I tip my hat to the Algerian Court for uncovering the oldest, most pervasive, and enduring Jewish conspiracy to put the world under a Jewish king--Christianity.

Yes, we Evangelicals want to colonize Algeria--although admittedly only spiritually. A Christianized Algeria would remain inhabited by Arabs and Berbers (plus whatever other smaller groups are in the country) and run by the same people; but they would be worshipping according to the Old and New Testaments and under the influence of God the Holy Spirit.

It warms my heart to know that the lands that gave us Augustine of Hippo will once again know the Gospel of free grace--and all without a shot fired in anger or a dime of American taxpayers' money.

AND...this is one reason why I cannot share the anti-immigration sentiment of some. The re-importation of Christianity to the Maghreb and Turkey in recent years was accomplished by returning guest workers and is partly supported by immigrant communities in the West. Bp. Michael Nazir Ali of England may be the most prominent ex-Muslim immigrant out there; but for every one of him there are dozens of ordinary former Muslim immigrants whose chief influence on the West will be in various legitimate forms of work and making future generations of Christian Westerners a shade more swarthy.

Posted by: Kepha at June 4, 2008 7:42 AM

Mira: Linguistically, the name Kahina suggests a priestly connection (cf, the common Hebrew name Kohen/Cohen/Kahn/Kahane/Kogon etc.). More later.

Posted by: Kepha at June 4, 2008 7:44 AM

ROBERT SPENCER wrote:
"They don't mean this, either -- for that they might have a case."

Oh, Mr. Spencer, I just want you to know your pointed jest did not go over the head of THIS Latin Mass going trad ROMAN Catholic!!! Yes, those puppets are just the tip of the iceberg upon with the Barque of Peter almost was wrecked these past 40 years. But note the little gray hair wooden heads surrounding those BIG wooden heads ! Then come visit us at St. John Cantius in Chicago and note the youthfulness of our Latin Mass worshippers and their young,large families. Take heart! Illegitimi non carborundum!

Bev in Chi Town

Posted by: bevc at June 4, 2008 2:03 PM