Algerian appeals court sentences Christian convert

An appeals court in eastern Algeria on Tuesday sentenced a Christian convert to three years in prison. Slimane Bouhafs initially received a five-year sentence last month from a lower court for Facebook posts the court said insulted Islam.

The Protestant Church of Algeria appealed the sentence, which several human rights advocates called unfair. Algerian authorities arrested the 49-year-old man July 31 after discovering a Facebook post where Bouhafs said the light of Jesus would overcome the “lie” of Islam and its prophets. His lawyer, Salah Debbouz, said the court first sentenced Bouhafs on the night of his arrest without access to lawyers, though the judge said the accused waived his rights to a lawyer and postponement of the trial. “It is a new attack against the rights guaranteed by national laws,” said Said Salhi of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights. “He appeared before the prosecutor on the same day of his arrest, without the presence of a lawyer.”

The court prosecutor charged him under a penal code that allows a three- to five-year prison term and a fine of up to $917 for insulting Muhammad and slandering the precepts of Islam. The court judgment stated Bouhafs’ Facebook posts, published between May and June, falsely presented Islam as a religion of intolerance and hatred.

“Algerian courts have no business judging people’s religious beliefs and opinions,” Sarah Leah Whitson, the Middle East and North Africa director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement. “Algeria should urgently revise its penal code to stop criminalizing peaceful free expression, including views that may insult Islam and the prophet.”

Bouhafs currently chairs the St. Augustine Coordination of Christians in Algeria. He also is a member of the separatist group Movement for Self-Determination of Kabylia. According to World Watch Monitor, Bouhafs’ daughter, Afaf, said her father is known for his commitment to democracy and religious freedom in Algeria.

The North African country is predominantly Muslim, with 99 percent of its population identifying as Sunni Muslims. The Middle East Concern, an anti-persecution Christian group, said Algerian Christians still face oppression from the state. Church applications for official recognition face delays, Christian activities conducted outside the church are often subject to sanctions, and converts to Christianity could face punishments like forced divorce and loss of child custody, the group said.

“Theoretically, revisions to the constitution made in February 2016 further strengthened rights to individual freedoms by mentioning ‘freedom of religious worship,’” the group said. “However, these revisions have not been translated into laws guaranteeing these freedoms.”