Protestant community in Algeria denounces manipulation

Algerian protestant communities staunchly denounced the declarations made by the monk Mustapha Karim aiming at creating an opposition front to the Algerian authorities, adding that his ideas do not represent but himself.

• In a declaration to “Echourouk” the head of Algiers’ Protestant church, the monk Roger Corivon said that the ideas put forward by the head of Bejaia’s protestant church, elected on top of the Algerian protestant churches organization, can in no means express the general view point of the Algerian Protestants, because” this church is deeply rooted in this country and has never had problems with the authorities in the past”. He went on saying “Either we respect the sovereignty of the country in which we live, or accept the implementation of the law on us”, but on the other hand he called for the respect of the freedom of cult and the Christian belief.
• In this respect, the head of Algiers’ protestant church said that the Algerian Protestants will neither face the authorities, nor infringe the laws “We will not accept any confrontation with the state”, he said.
• Trying to give some explanations on the Protestant church’s principles, the head of Algiers’ church declared “The Protestant church’s system is completely dissimilar to Catholic one; there is not such a strict hierarchy. Basically, the Protestant church departed from this system and each church has its own system, but we all belong to the same family”. Still, he didn’t deny the fact that the French Protestant federation closely watching the Algerian matters.
• Roger Corivon added that it was not easy to estimate the number of Protestants in Algeria or even the other religious communities” we cannot give a precise number of the Protestants, even if we proceed to a general census (referring to that done by the authorities for the population), the outcome will be approximate” he said “But the approximate number of Protestants could be reach 10 thousands”.