While religious freedom is flouted by his regime: Tebboune received this Thursday by Pope Leo XIV

VATICAN (TAMURT) – After Italy, Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune is visiting the Vatican on Thursday, July 24. He was received by Pope Leo XIV. This visit comes at a time when the Algerian regime has closed all evangelical churches in Kabylia and several church leaders are being prosecuted for “exercising worship other than Muslim without authorization.”

The Algerian president will visit Pope Leo XIV on Thursday, while his country is singled out by several NGOs and placed by the US State Department on its special watch list “for having committed or tolerated serious violations of religious freedom”. A vast campaign to close Protestant churches has been carried out by the Algerian authorities in Kabylia since 2018. It resulted in the closure of all Christian places of worship frequented by Kabyles, particularly in the departments of Tizi Wezzu and Bgayet. In addition, more than fifty pastors and church leaders have been prosecuted for “exercising worship other than Muslim without prior authorization.”

In 2006, the Algerian government promulgated a law that was supposed to govern worship other than Muslim. However, this law is instrumentalized and used by the Algerian authorities to muzzle the religious freedom of the Christian community in Kabylia and Algeria. Hundreds of thousands of Kabyle Christians are deprived of places of worship, while the construction of mosques is strongly encouraged by the authorities.

The Algerian constitution stipulates that Islam is the religion of the state, while Kabylia is traditionally secular. The religious tolerance of the Kabyle people is perfectly illustrated in the expression (oath) “Jemaâ liman” (in the name of all beliefs, in English).

Arezki Massi