Morning Star News
Two Christians Sentenced to Prison and Heavy Fine in Algeria
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Pastor, bookseller convicted for Christian literature at their store.
By Our Algeria Correspondent
TIZI-OUZOU, Algeria, March 4, 2021 (Morning Star News) – A court in Algeria has convicted and sentenced in absentia a pastor and another Christian to two years in prison and a heavy fine, accusing them of “shaking the faith” of Muslims with Christian literature at their bookstore, sources said.
Pastor Rachid Seighir and Nouh Hamimi learned by a written notification slipped under the door of their church building in Oran, a coastal city 268 miles west of Algiers, that they had been sentenced to prison and fined 500,000 Algerian dinars (US$3,745).
The pastor was the manager of the now-closed bookstore, where Hamimi worked as a salesman. The judgment reads that they are condemned for “distributing publications or any other propaganda undermining the faith of a Muslim.”
Pastor Seighir of Oratoire Church in Oran said the conviction was mere retaliation in a conflict over the bookstore going back to 2008, when he was convicted of the same charges and acquitted on appeal. The governor of Oran ordered the bookshop closed in 2017, but in April 2018, a court ruled the closure order was invalid due to procedural problems – though authorities continued to keep the bookshop closed, he said.
