Algeria: A New Law Against Religious Extremism

The Ministry of Religious Affairs and Endowments has filed lawsuits against pseudo imams or religious preachers who had seized control over some mosques and other places of worship and thus imposed their deviant religious views on their fellow citizens.

In so doing, the ministry is preparing a law criminalizing religious extremism in mosques with its adverse consequences mainly to divide Muslims by forging some sectarian abuses and misleading interpretations of the holy Koranic text and the tradition of the noble Prophet Mohamed (God’s Peace and Blessings Be Upon Him).

It also called on the various Mayors of the country’s municipalities to be vigilant and to maintain places of worship of their respective municipalities in good order.

The Minister of Religious Affairs and Endowments, Mohamed Aissa, said his relevant services have filed lawsuits against these dubious imams who are not part of the congregation of the bona-fide Imams and moreover have not been trained in Algeria.

He added that justice will take all necessary measures to put a halt to this deleterious trend while utterly refusing to see Algeria slide back to the last years of the black decade, referring to religious extremism and terrorist violence that jolted our country in the 90’s.

On the other hand, the minister emphasized the role of mosques in the fight against intellectual extremism, saying that the attachment to the National Spiritual reference remains the right solution to deal successfully with any attempted invasion or violation of intellectual extremism.

He recalled in this context the importance of the efficient training of imams so as to cope with any attempt meant to exploit the Islamic religion by certain nefarious circles abroad and which are trying to have a foothold in Algeria to sow fitna or discord and division.

In this sense, the religious affairs minister pointed to the recent arrest of a hundred people in central Blida city, all them members of the “Ahmadiyah” community noting that the latter’s hegemony in some provinces and all its movements are known to the national security services as well as other sects or shadowy religious trends.

Furthermore, a National Observatory on the fight against religious extremism is essential, he said,  given the role it will play in the sustained and resolute fight against all forms of extremism and deviation.