Protestants in Algeria get their occupied church back
Nearly ten years after surrendering their worship space, Protestants in the mostly Muslim country in North Africa win a symbolic victory
The Algerian Council of State has officially returned a worship site to the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA), almost ten years after it was given to a Muslim organization.
The humble stone building, located in the port city of Mostaganem (northwestern Algeria, 360 km from Algiers), dates from the French colonial era.
The EPA had lent the church to the Algerian Ministry of Health in 1976, but the governor of Mostaganem donated it to an Islamic charity in 2012.
The EPA immediately began formal legal proceedings seeking the return of the building.
The Christian community won its case in May 2019, and was finally able to regain possession of the 30-seat building last June.
A Pyrrhic victory
It was a symbolic victory for the Protestant community, as Algeria has closed many of its churches in recent years.
The Church of the Full Gospel, was closed in October 2019 much to the chagrin of its faithful and the president of the Protestant Church of Algeria, Pastor Salah Chalah.
Active in the country since 1996, this is Algeria’s largest Protestant congregation with nearly 1,200 active members.
But it is only one of 45 different communities affiliated with the Protestant Church of Algeria.
Still no authorization to open a Protestant place of worship
The church in Mostaganem was, therefore, on the list of the many Protestant church buildings that are currently discriminated against in Algeria.
This is due to a decree passed in 2006, which subjects the opening of a place of worship to prior authorization, and prohibits the practice of worship in places not intended for this purpose.
"Collective worship takes place exclusively in buildings intended for that purpose, open to the public and identifiable from the outside," states Article 7 of the decree.
Fifteen years after this law came into force, there has been no authorization for opening a Protestant worship space.
"We were never told who to contact or what procedure to follow to obtain them," laments Salaheddine Chalah of the Reformed Protestants' media outlet.
These restrictions were the subject of a letter the United Nations sent to the Algerian government in December 2020 to denounce the situation as a "violation of human rights".