Imams vow to Protest, Insist on Creating a Syndicate

Mosques are the second-largest force in terms of the human population after the military institutions. Algeria counts 17 .000 mosques, where Muslims attend the Friday prayers in an official capacity, a part of the chapels and mosques under construction, and thus, it represents 17.000 weekly gatherings which brings together 20 million worshipers, according to official statistics.

Mosques of the Republic include 85.000 gathering to perform the five daily prayers, and therefore the imams represent a compressive power and an important driving, that allows reversing balances as soon as one speech is said at the same time it is subject to influence among the largest numbers of audiance.

The imam is the valve of the state and thesupporter of the law of mercy and the National Reconciliation Act, and the lawyer and defender of stabilization whenever a sedition is raised, like the latest protests over sugar and oil prices.

Hadj Hadjadj, Imam of the Mosque of Othman Ben Affan in Stawali (Algiers), during his visit to “Echorouk” forum, called upon the imams to get around the initiative of establishing a syndicate to defend their professional, and social demands; “The syndicate is a constitutional right and not a rebellion,” assuring the ministry that the imam will not strike on Friday or Taraweeh prayers, and the mosque will not be close its doors in the face of worshipers, because his work is epistolary and has a direct relationship with the community”.

For his part, Djamal Ghoul, an Imam and Professor at the mosque of Obeida Ibn Al Djarrah in Bache Djarrah (Algiers), said; “Our rights remain important. We protest with the appropriate ways through sending correspondences or sit ins, and we will make reforms in the Ministry, if there is a corruption,” referring to contacts with the syndicates that are active in the field to know the prior procedures”.

Ghoul asserted that the idea of ​​the syndicate presented itself as a result of the bad conditions of the religious sector and the imam adding; “I will not give up protesting until these demands are realized, and the idea is mature, as many parts in the West like Oran, and in the east like Constantine, raised these demands in the presence of the Minister of Religion, who said that he hoped to establish a syndicate which is the right of imams”; adding; “There is a difference between the syndicate of imams who are the owners of a message and a haven for the community and syndicates for other categories. It is good to collect all the imams in the syndicate or association without the politicization, as its role will be serving the slogan of Muslim Scholars Association and the nation.”