Persecution of the Day
Posted by Godefroi on May 29, 2008
Christian could face three years in prison for practicing faith ‘without license.’
An Algerian public prosecutor has demanded a three-year sentence for a convert to Christianity in western Algeria for practicing her faith “without license.” [...]
“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. 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.
And this, related, also in Algeria, also from Compass Direct.
ALGERIA: PROSECUTOR DEMANDS 2-YEAR SENTENCE FOR CONVERTS FROM ISLAM
A state prosecutor in western Algeria demanded two-year jail sentences and large fines for six Muslim converts to Christianity yesterday in one of two trials against Christians that have caught the north African nation’s attention in the past week. The same court in Tiaret city yesterday delayed the verdict of a Christian woman facing three years in prison for “practicing non-Muslim religious rites without a license.” [...]
At the trial of the six converts yesterday, a state prosecutor raised a second charge of illegally practicing non-Muslim worship and demanded two-year jail sentences and 500,000 dinar (US$8,145) fines each. Initially the men were charged with “distributing documents to shake the faith of Muslims.”
