An Algerian Christian’s family appealed in October to the Algerian president for a pardon, after Slimane Bouhafs was convicted of ‘insulting Islam and the prophet Mohammed’ in posts he made on social media.
Bouhafs, who converted to Christianity in 1997, was sentenced to three years imprisonment on 6 September. He had shared someone else’s media posts. The family see the presidential pardon as the only possibly solution to set their father free as he is suffering with ill health and a Supreme Court appeal would take too long to come to court.
Algeria: ostracism threats
World Watch Monitor
The death of their father on 30 October brought threats of being ostracised from their village as the Christian convert children of their converted father attempted to bury him without Islamic death rites.
The Christians backed down amid rising tensions with neighbours. Fellow Christians comforted members of the family reminding them that their father was ‘already in the arms of his Father’. Many people in the area have been converted despite increased pressure from Muslims around them regarding their new faith.
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