New Church in Algeria Burned to the Ground

By Michael Ireland, ASSIST News Service

ALGERIA (ANS) — The Tafat Protestant Church building in Tizi Ouzou, Algeria, was set on fire on January 9, around 11:00 pm, according to the website for satellite broadcaster Channel North Africa (www.cna-sat.org ).

On its site, CNA states that “Tafat” means “light” in the Berber language.

According to the church’s pastor, Mustapha Krireche, “around twenty bearded men broke into the church, destroyed the chairs and doors and then set the building on fire.”

According to Pastor Mustapha, earlier that same day, the day they normally gather together to worship, church members were forcibly prevented from entering the church.

Mustapha said the same men who stopped them worshipping also started destroying facilities. The police came and wrote down details of the incident, but the attackers returned during the night to burn down the building.

CNA reported that already the Christians of the Tafat Protestant Church weren’t able to celebrate Christmas as they had planned.

On Saturday, December 26, while they were preparing a worship service in their new building to celebrate the birth of Christ, they were confronted by fifty Muslim demonstrators who threatened to kill Pastor Mustafa.

According to CNA, one man cried out: “This is Muslim land; go somewhere else to pray!” The police intervened to avoid any violence.

CNA says that for the Muslims protestors, the newly-built church in a residential neighborhood is an “offense” to Islam. The protestors also complained about the presence of foreigners and the noisy music.

Pastor Mustapha admitted to journalists that they use music in their services.

“It’s a part of our worship,” he explained, “but if someone complains, we’ll stop.”

For the time being, the church doesn’t know when it will be able to restart normal activities.

The President of the Protestant Church of Algeria, Mustapha Krim, stated: “This is the third time that the members of Tafat were prevented from worshiping. We’re going to file a legal complaint in the courts.”

Another Algerian church leader is alarmed by this turn of events. He said: “To my knowledge, this is the first time that such a thing has happened. Maybe it’s a new government tactic trying to keep Christians from meeting together. Instead of using force, the local police might be encouraging the Muslim extremists to put pressure on the churches.”

CNA explains that Algerian media present a negative image of Christians, and generally speaking, the Algerian people consider the church to be a threat to Algerian culture.

Nonetheless, CNA says no Christian of Muslim origin is in prison, even though a dozen cases are still being tried in the courts. In addition, of the 26 churches that received orders to close, 22 are still functioning.

CNA or Channel North Africa, is an association that started in the year 2000 by the efforts of several partners who wished to broadcast the Gospel into North Africa using audiovisual materals.

The vision of CNA is to see the peoples of North Africa reconciled with God, regenerated and transformed by the Gospel in the communities in which they live.