ALGERIA: ALL BUT ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S PROTESTANT CHURCHES ARE CLOSED

In recent years, over 40 Protestant churches have been forcibly closed or decided to close due to pressure from the authorities IN ALGERIA. All but one remain shut down – despite church leaders appealing the closures.

The closures and prosecutions are part of a growing systematic pressure on Algeria’s religious minorities.

‘Urgent situation’ 

‘The situation faced by Christian believers, dissenters and all religious minorities, is becoming urgent,’ notes an Open Doors Advocacy spokesperson.  ‘The government continues to threaten and prosecute pastors. We have the shutdown of nearly all evangelical churches; only one remains open in the entire country’.  
 
Christians speaking to Open Doors’ partner networks describe a stark choice: risk underground worship or abandon worship entirely.  

Algeria has risen sharply on the Open Doors World Watch List, from 36th place in 2017 up to 15th place in 2024, underscoring the North African country’s rapid deterioration in religious tolerance.

Pastors sentenced 

Christian leaders in court are almost always charged under a wide-ranging law with numerous regulations restricting non-Muslim worship.  

For pastors facing prosecution, the ordeal of criminal proceedings can last years. Many are forced to leave the country, such as Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, who was convicted in his absence of ‘agitating the faith of Muslims’ and ‘illegally using church buildings’.  

Another case, that of Pastor Salah Chalah, President of the Église Protestante d’Algérie, involved charges of organising peaceful demonstrations against his own church’s closure. The trial of Pastor Hamid Soudad resulted in his imprisonment for five years on charges of insulting Islam and publishing a cartoon in 2018.  He was eventually released in 2023.  

Nearly all those targeted are Christians from a Muslim backgroun.

Source: Forum 18