Tiaret, Algeria – 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.
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.
Government officials have claimed that they are only submitting Christians to the same restrictions as Muslims, who must worship in government approved mosques.
Some Algerian observers disagree.
“For several months a there has been a hunt for Algerians who converted to Christianity,” wrote el Watan columnist Taybe Belghiche yesterday. He said that Kouider’s case was one example of the hunt, which he described as a violation of freedom of worship enshrined in the constitution.
“Unfortunately, no voice rises to denounce this ‘witch hunt,’” he said.