Yet Another Church Forcibly Closed in Algeria
ICC Note: Pressure against Algerian Christians continue as yet another church closes down after receiving a 15 day warning. The authorities claim that they are closing the church because it fails to meet safety standards and the building was originally intended for poultry. This is the same kind of reasoning which the authorities have used to close other churches. Over half of the recognized churches in Algeria have received similar safety standard notifications.
03/23/2018 Algeria (World Watch Monitor) – Another church has been closed down in northern Algeria, as pressure against Christians intensifies in the Maghreb country.
The village church in Azagher, near the town of Akbou, was forced to stop all activities on 2 March. The church had been running for over six years.
Two weeks earlier, on 18 February, the leaders of the church had received a notification that they must close their church within 15 days.
The notification stated that the church building, “which was originally intended for the poultry business”, did not meet the standards required by law in order to host a public meeting. It pointed to the lack of a second exit or fire extinguisher.
It also said the fact the church had a foreign pastor (he is from the Democratic Republic of the Congo) contradicted a 2008 law “concerning the conditions of entry of foreigners into Algerian territory and their residence, as well as their movements”.
The church is the fourth forced to close in the past four months. The three others were in or around the town of Oran, 600km west of Akbou. Unlike the church in Azagher, the three other churches were all affiliated to the EPA, Algeria’s main Protestant-church body, officially recognised by the government since 1974.
Of the EPA’s 45 churches, 25 have received notifications to comply with safety standards in the past few months.
Advocacy group Middle East Concern said earlier this year that the closures were part of a “coordinated campaign of intensified action against churches by the governing authorities”.
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