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Islamic Tolerance Alert, and an update on this story. "Algeria convicts 2 for promoting Christianity," by Aomar Ouali for the Associated Press, July 2:
ALGIERS, Algeria - Two converts to Christianity were convicted Wednesday of illegally promoting their faith in Muslim Algeria and handed suspended sentences and fines, their lawyer said.
Rachid Mohammed Seghir, 40, and Jammal Dahmani, 36, were sentenced for "distributing documents that aimed at weakening the faith of Muslims," lawyer Khelloudja Khalfoun said.
"It's very likely we will appeal," she told The Associated Press by telephone after leaving the courthouse in Tissemsilt, some 150 miles southwest of Algiers.
"The accusations were not proven, and the court's decision is not justified," she said.
Each defendant was given a six-month suspended sentence and a fine of 100,000 dinars ($1,560).
Both are evangelical Protestant Christians and first were prosecuted when extracts from the Bible and other Christian books were found in one of their cars in 2007 during a routine check.
They were charged with proselytizing, or trying to spread their faith among Muslims, as well as praying in a building that had not been granted a religious permit by authorities.
Only a tiny fraction of Algeria's 34 million people are not Muslim, with Christians and Jews comprising up to 1 percent of the population, according to a U.S. government estimate.
Algeria's constitution allows freedom of worship. But a decree approved by parliament in February 2006 strictly regulates how religions other than Islam can be practiced.
The text is viewed as primarily targeting Protestant faiths, which have become increasingly active in Algeria. It provides for jail sentences of up to five years and a euro10,000 ($15,570) fine for anyone trying to incite a Muslim to convert to another faith.
The president of the Association of Algerian Protestant churches, Mustapha Krim, said Wednesday's verdict was "scandalous" because it infringes on people's freedom of opinion.
Krim called on the 2006 decree "to be radically changed so that Christians in Algeria can live their faith freely and serenely, like Muslims."
He told the AP that more than a half-dozen court cases currently target Protestants in Algeria.
More on Algerian court cases against Christians can be found here, here, here, and here.
Posted by Marisol at July 3, 2008 12:00 AM
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weakening the faith of Muslims hmm if islam is the true faith how could it be weakened UNLESS IT TRULY IS A CULT
Posted by: ISLAMSNOTFORME![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/dhimmiwatch/nav-commenters.gif)
at July 3, 2008 2:28 AM
Funny how muslims expect prayer rooms and other accommodations so they can freely exercise their faith in the West, but non-muslims have to conform to these draconian laws in islamic countries...
Posted by: DJM at July 3, 2008 7:19 AM
Meanwhile, in France:
UPDATE: Muslim Father Apologizes Over Crucifix Affair
http://covenantzone.blogspot.com/2008/07/update-muslim-father-apologizes-over.html
Posted by: skevin at July 3, 2008 12:17 PM
People call me naive, but really, it continues to amaze me the way Islam combines a granite certainty as to its beliefs, with a nervous paranoia about losing them. The slightest suggestion that a different spiritual reading of human life is possible brings on the censors and the police. I suppose one could point out that Christianity was somewhat similar, in the days of the Inquisition and its charming procedures, and the difference is just the timeline. You know, how for reasons we will not seek Islam never went through a Renaissance, a Scientific Revolution, an Age of Enlightenment, or a Liberal Nineteenth Century, and is therefore quite understandably stuck in the Middle Ages. One has to wonder, though, about the "faith" of a culture that fears inroads from everywhere, sees "conspiracies" behind every door, and explodes with rage over every little slight to its integrity. Apparently, no matter how much you believe in him, Allah needs a lot of help maintaining his cause and his truth.
Posted by: Novalis at July 3, 2008 5:06 PM
Hey, in the West, it's getting so we Christians might have to face jail time for shaking the faith of secularists and homosexuals, too! It's part of the multi-cultie program.
Novalis, Islam denies original sin. It is why they are always searching for some rightly guided Caliph (never mind that all four of their early ones were assassinated); and why when anything goes wrong, they blame the JOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOZ. The world of Islam is full of incompetent conspiracies (does any of their countries work at all when they have no oil?), so they go around seeing everyone else as conspiratorial, too. As moralists who believe that your salvation depends on what you do rather than what God does, they've given us a moral code that sets the bar very low, especially where women and minorities are concerned.
Judaism and Christianity have self-critical traditions that go all the way back to the prophets of Israel (after all, the Jewish Bible is four-fifths of the Christian one); Islam has a self-congratulatory tradition that goes all the way back to Muhammad. It's why Muslims can never blame themselves for any of the messes they make.
Posted by: Kepha at July 5, 2008 6:32 AM
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