Legal framework and practice
Algeria has been party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights since 1989 and has signed the Optional Protocol accepting individual complaints procedures. Its 2020 Constitution declares in its Preamble that Algeria is “a land of Islam”, and that Islam is a fundamental component of the country’s identity. Islam is the state religion (Art. 2) and prohibits any constitutional revision undermining Islam as the religion of the state (Art 223.4). The Constitution prohibits state institutions from behaving in a manner that is incompatible with Islam (Art. 11). Article 87 specifies that only a Muslim can become president and must swear “by Almighty God to respect and glorify the Islamic religion” when taking his oath (Art. 90). Political parties can neither be founded on a religious basis, nor use partisan propaganda to undermine the values and basic components of national identity, which includes Islam (Art. 57, para 2). The constitution guarantees the free practice of religion if the law is respected, and the “State ensures the protection of places of worship from any political or ideological influence” (Art. 51). However, Ordinance n° 06¬03 of 28 February 2006 is more explicit regarding the limits of the exercise of religious freedom, which must be practiced “within the framework of respect for the provisions of the Constitution, this Ordinance, the laws and regulations in force, public order, good morals and the fundamental rights and freedoms of third parties” (Art. 54, para 2).
Freedom of the press is recognized by the constitution, and “includes in particular the right to disseminate information, ideas, images and opinions within the framework of the law and respect for the religious, moral and cultural constants and values of the Nation.” (Art. 54, para 2). The dissemination of any discriminatory hate speech is constitutionally prohibited (Art. 53, para 3).
Sunni Islam, following the Maliki school, is the official religion of the country, and is shared by over 98 percent of the population. Ahmadis (around 1,000) are considered heretical and are considered to be manipulated by foreign powers. Christians are a tiny minority (129,356) and live mostly in the Kabyle region in the north of Algeria.
Officially, almost all Christians are foreigners, and many come from sub-Saharan Africa. Catholics and Protestants are the largest Christian communities with some Evangelical communities, especially in the Kabyle region. Small Baha’i and Buddhist communities (4091 and 6578) are also present, as well as Chinese folk-religionists (14,032). More than 547,000 agnostics live in the country. Only 57 Jews remain in Algeria. There were an estimated 130,000 Jewish residents at the time of independence from France in 1962, but the Nationality Code passed in 1963 deprived non-Muslims of Algerian citizenship, and most of them flew to other countries.
All religious groups must register with the Ministry of Interior before conducting any activities and may gather at state-approved locations only. Ordinance 06-03 of 2006 provides that all places of non-Muslim worship must be given an authorization by the National Commission for Non-Muslim Worship (Art. 5, para 1), which is not usually granted, and Churches are therefore compelled to operate on an unofficial basis, becoming vulnerable to interference and closure. Collective worship is allowed exclusively in registered buildings for their purpose and must be open to the public and be identifiable from the outside (Art.7 and 8).
Religious events must be opened, subject to prior declaration, and carried out only in registered buildings (Art. 13). Contravention of any regulations regarding worshiping buildings and restricted practices under Ordinance 06-03 of 2006 are punishable with prison: 1 to 3 years and a penalty (100,000 to 300,000 Algerian dinars, approx. € 680 to 2,050) (Art. 14, para 1). In the case of foreigners breaching any provision of the said Ordinance, they can be banned indefinitely from the country, or for a period of no less than 10 years (Art. 14).
Defamation of anyone “who belongs to a particular ethnic or philosophical group or religion” is punishable by imprisonment of one month to one year, and a fine of 10,000 to 100,000 dinars (€ 68 to 680), or only one of these two penalties when its purpose is to incite hatred between citizens or inhabitants. In the case of insult, the punishment consists of imprisonment from 5 days to 6 months, and/or a fine of 5,000 to 50,000 dinars (€ 34 to 340) (Art. 298 bis). Offences related to religion include Article 144 bis (2) of the Penal Code, which provides that anyone who “offends the Prophet ... and the messengers of God or disparages the dogma or precepts of Islam, whether it be through writing, artwork, speaking, or any other medium” may be subject to three to five years in prison and/or a fine of between 50,000 and 100,000 dinars (€ 340- 680). Proselytizing of Muslims by non-Muslims is a crime. Article 11 of Ordinance 06-03 criminalizes proselytization in these terms: anyone who “incites, constrains, or utilizes means of seduction intending to convert a Muslim to another religion; or uses to this end establishments of teaching, education, health, of a social and or cultural character, training institutes, or any other establishment, or any other financial means” is subjected to 3–5 years’ imprisonment and a fine of 500,000 to 1 million dinar (€ 3,400 to 6,800). The same penalties are applicable to anyone who “makes, stores, or distributes printed documents or audiovisual footage or by any other medium or means which aim to shake the faith of a Muslim.”
Ordinance Nr 06-03 also specifies that collecting money or accepting donations without the authorization of the legally empowered authorities is punishable by imprisonment (1 to 3 years, and fine of 100,000 to 300,000 dinars, € 680 to 2,040) (Art. 12), a provision that has been applied to non-Muslim religious communities and faithful. Any legal person violating this law, as set out in Ordinance 06-03, may be sanctioned to a fine and other penalties such as confiscation of assets, the ban of activities or even dissolution (Art. 15).
As per the Family Code, a Muslim man can marry a non-Muslim woman if she belongs to a monotheistic faith. Muslim women cannot marry non-Muslim men unless the man converts to Islam. It is permissible to marry more than one wife within the limits of the Sharia (Art. 8, para 1). Children born to a Muslim father are considered Muslims without regard to the mother’s faith. In the case of divorce, the person entitled to legal custody (“hadana”) will ensure the education of the child in the father's religion (Art. 62). Adoption (“Tabanni”) is prohibited by Sharia and Algerian law (Art; 46). Only Muslims are entitled to “kafala” (Art. 118) a voluntary and benevolent undertaking to provide for the support, education, and protection of a minor child in the same way a parent would for his or her child, but not necessarily with the transference of inheritance rights, or the change of the child’s family name. A minor child may be placed under the administration of a testamentary guardian (who must be of Muslim faith by law) by his or her father or grandfather if the child has no mother, or if the mother's incapacity is established by any legal means (Art. 93). According to the Civil Code, first names “must be Algerian in sound”; however, “this may be different for children born to parents of a non-Muslim faith.” (Art. 28) In accordance with its Civil code, in the absence of a legal provision, the judge decides according to the principles of Islamic law (Art.1, para 2).
Incidents and developments
The authoritarian accentuation of the regime that currently holds political power in the country has given rise to an intensification of hostility against members of religious minorities. In November 2021, the US added Algeria to its “Special Watch List” on religious freedom violations, as its government engaged in, or tolerated, “severe violations of religious freedom,” and still remains on its 2022 list. This persecution of religious minorities is backed by both the Penal Code and the Ordinance nr. 06-03, which provide broad powers, enabling the Algerian government’s crackdown on Christians and other religious minorities. Muslim converts to Christianity are worried about social pressure and may face disadvantages when it comes to the inheritance of property. There is a systematic pattern from authorities to deny visas for Church visitors. Christians face severe restrictions on importing Christian literature and other materials.
Algerian authorities have prevented Christian churches from operating and have harassed members of the Ahmadiyya religious community. It is not uncommon that authorisations for the construction or renovation of Christian churches are refused due to "non-conformity" with in-force legislation or, more generally, on the grounds of “the exercise of a non-Muslim religion without authorisation”, even in those cases where the requirements of the Ordinance nr 06-03 to control non-Muslim religions are met and complied with.
Algerian authorities restored a historic church in Mostaganem, but 20 other churches were ordered to cease activities and 13 were sealed completely. Fifteen Protestant churches (belonging to the Église Protestante d’Algérie, or EPA) have been closed throughout the country, including an historic church in Oran, which opened in 1920. In addition, there has been deliberate obstructionism on the part of the executive, which has tried to prevent the enforcement of successful court cases for religious minorities. The usual explanation the Algerian authorities give for closing churches is that it prevents proselytism and evangelization. In November 2021, the authorities accused the EPA president and pastor Salaheddin Chalah and four other Protestant Christians of “unauthorised worship”. Pastor Chalah was reportedly sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment in March 2022, while his co-accused was sentenced to six months imprisonment. Twelve Christians, including three women and a French guest speaker, were arrested on 12 December 2021 for “non-Muslim unauthorised worship”. The French visitor paid the fine and was ordered to leave the country, while the other 11 each received a suspended prison sentence of six months and a 200,000 dinar-fine (€ 1,360). On appeal, a court on 28 April 2022 retained the suspended prison sentence but reduced the fine to 100,000 dinars (€ 680).
Christmas celebrations are a cause of concern due to hostility from Islamic fundamentalists, who consider such celebrations reprehensible considering them foreign and alien to their culture. For example, the director of the state-owned Radio Constantine was dismissed after broadcasting the song “Ayed ellayl” (“Holy Night”) by renowned singer Fayrouz, a song whose lyrics state “Jesus visited the night…Jesus coloured the night.”
When Christians go to a restaurant during the day in the month of Ramadan, police may confiscate their IDs for “violating the sanctity of Islamic fasting.” The COVID-19 pandemic made this reality of discrimination even more apparent. Christian churches, for example, faced stricter COVID-19 restrictions than mosques. Furthermore, after ordering all houses of worship to close at the beginning of the pandemic, the government gradually reopened mosques and even Catholic churches, but failed to reopen Protestant churches.
Concerning the Ahmadiyya communities, in July 2021, UN human rights experts expressed deep concern over the lack of attention to the serious human rights violations perpetrated against the Ahmadiyya Muslim community worldwide, including in Algeria. On 6 June 2022, the First Instance Tribunal in Bejaia charged 18 people who identified as members of the Ahmadi religious community with “participation in an unauthorized group” and accused them of “denigrating Islam”, under Article 46 of the Law on Associations and Article 144 bis 2 of the Algerian Penal Code, respectively. Three members (Redouane Foufa, Cherif Mohamed Ali, and Khireddine Ahman) were sentenced to one year in prison and the rest of the group to six months in prison, with fines. After appeal, the 18 individuals were exonerated from their charges and released.
Blasphemy legislation is applied in Algeria and disproportionally affects religious minorities. A judge in Oran, Algeria, upheld on 22 March 2021 a five-year prison sentence for Hamid Soudad, a Christian convicted of reposting a cartoon of Islam’s prophet on his Facebook account in 2018. Saïd Djabelkhir, a well-known Islamic expert, was sentenced in April 2021 to three years in prison for “offending” Islam in comments he posted on Facebook, but was released on appeal on 1 February 2023. An unidentified 33-year-old individual was arrested by the anti-cybercrime services of the wilaya (department) of Boumerdès in northern Algeria in May 2021, for publishing on social networks “falsifications of Koranic verses and hadith”. Slimane Bouhafs was released from prison in 2018, having served almost two years for violating Algeria’s blasphemy laws. Further persecution drove him to Tunisia in October 2018, where he found asylum. However, threats on his life continued while he was there, by phone and on social media. In August 2021 he was kidnapped from Tunisia and was brought back to Algeria where he was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment under the criminal charges of belonging to, and procuring, foreign funds for a “terrorist organization” and “undermining national unity.” The French-Algerian doctor, journalist, and activist Amira Bouraoui was condemned to two years’ imprisonment for “infringement of the precepts of Islam and the Prophet". After spending some months in prison, she was released and came back to France.
On 6 June 2021, an appeal court imposed upon pastor Rachid Seighir and his bookshop assistant Mouh Hamimi a one-year suspended sentence and a fine of 200,000 dirhams (€ 1,360) for “shaking the faith” of Muslims with Christian literature at his bookstore in Oran. Mohammed Derrab is a Christian who was arrested in January 2022 in Tizi-Ouzou by the Algerian authorities after preaching and offering a Bible to a person in the street. Sentenced to 18 months in prison, his house was searched by the authorities who confiscated his Bibles. In July 2021, a court in Ain Defla, a city west of the capital Algiers, sentenced Christian convert Foudhil Bahloul to a six-month suspended prison term and a fine of 100,000 dinars (€ 680) over a 200 €o transfer from a friend in Germany, which was deemed to be an “unauthorized donation”. He was formally charged with distributing Bibles in order to “spread poisonous ideas to the unemployed youth”. In December 2021, Bahloul’s appeal was rejected and his suspended sentence was upheld. On 26 September 2022, the Algerian administration notified the members of the cultural association Azday Adelsan, created in 1989, of their being the object of a legal action for its dissolution for transgressing the law governing associative activity and “hiding behind the association for the propagation of Christianity by distributing CDs and leaflets in the communes of Aokas and Tizi N'Berber”. In addition, the Catholic charitable organization Caritas Algeria closed its doors definitively on 1 October 2022, following a request from the Algerian public authorities.
Worrying trends can be observed in the increasing Islamisation of public life and intolerance against religious minorities in Algeria. The President of the High Islamic Council and former minister for religious affairs, Bouabdellah Ghlamallah, triggered controversy on social networks by saying, in a speech delivered on 5 May 2021 on the occasion of the 90th anniversary of the Association of Algerian Muslim Ulemas (created in 1931 during the French colonization), that “the Algerian can only be Muslim” and that “Islam and nationalism are two sides of the same coin”. For the first time since Algeria gained its independence from France in 1962, Algerians watched a veiled female news presenter giving a brief on state television on the morning of 15 February 2022. The Audio-visual Regulatory Authority (Arav) decided to permanently close the TV channel “Al Adjwaa” after it broadcast on Sunday night “offensive scenes that are contrary to the values of our society and religion”. An Imam made insulting remarks about citizens attending a musical art gala, calling them “scum” and “irreligious”, according to some present at the time. The remarks were broadcast from the mosque's loudspeakers. In December 2022, the famous statue of a naked woman adorning the Ain El Fouara fountain in the centre of Sétif was vandalized, in a manner that some interpreted as intensifying religious intolerance. The Minister of Trade and Export Promotion, Kamel Rezig, launched in January 2023 in Algiers a national awareness campaign on products such as toys, school items, clothes, and even the Qur’an “containing colours and symbols detrimental to the religion and moral values of Algerian society”, in order “to protect the moral interests of the Algerian consumer”. In 2022, 38,542 units were seized and destroyed, including school items and children's toys containing colours and symbols that were considered to be “contrary to religion and the values of Algerian society,” in addition to 4561 copies of the Qur'an containing pages with colours labelled as “contrary to religion.” The number of female Islamic religious guides (“Mourchidates”) rose from 200 in 2002, to more than 1500 in 2022. The Algerian religious affairs administration has 14 training institutes for Imams and religious leaders, in addition to a National School under the same department. Mirroring the Moroccan policy, a new institute will be launched in Niger specialising in the training of Imams and religious leaders, as well as religious guides (“mourchidates”), whose supervision will be provided by Algerian teachers specialising in religious guidance.
As a result of the signing of an agreement between the Algerian Ministry of Religious Affairs and the Paris Mosque, all French products imported into Algeria will be certified “halal”. Algeria sends 120 Imams to France each year, where they are appointed to different mosques. Algeria also finances the Paris Mosque, the most important mosque in France.
It has been reported that the Kabyle Christians are prey to an unprecedented level of persecution. This has resulted in the closure of their places of worship, the summoning of Christian leaders by the gendarmerie and the police, harassment, and legal proceedings for proselytising or practicing a religion other than Islam without authorisation. Opposition groups have accused the national authorities of recruiting no fewer than 100 Imams to teach Arabic and the Koran to pursue the Arabisation of Kabyle villages. It is to be expected that, given internal circumstances (the growing discontent of the Algerian population, the constitutional fracture, and the dictatorial tendency of the government), the situation of religious minorities, in particular Christians and Ahmadiyya, will not only not improve, but the intolerance and discrimination they suffer will increase, making them easy targets for attack. Despite these trends, and in the framework of promoting dialogue between the Muslim and Christian communities, the Basilica of Our Lady of Africa in Algiers organised the 7th edition of the famous Muslim-Christian Marian Day (JMIC, in French) held in Algeria on 7 May 2022, as part of the celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Basilica.
Prospects for freedom of religion
There is only a semblance of freedom of worship surviving in Algeria, and a mere thread of interreligious dialogue that has survived ever more constraining anti-conversion laws and limits to freedom of expression. An understanding of human rights seems to apply only to Muslims, according to the government’s precepts and as a result of social pressure. Adding to this the open “Arabisation” of Kabyle areas, and the closing of the pontifical aid organization Caritas Algeria, the prospects for religious freedom in Algeria remain negative and should be observed for possible further deterioration.
Algeria