ALGERIA: Family Fears for Life of Christian Imprisoned for Blasphemy

Source: Morning Star News, November 29, 2016

The daughter of an Algerian Christian sentenced to three years in prison on a charge of blaspheming Islam fears for his life, religious freedom advocates said.

Although the date when the assault was set to happen is not publically known, advocacy group Middle East Concern (MEC) received the first reports about the plans on November 14. A group of inmates planned to attack [Slimane] Bouhafs because he objected to the views of an imam who publicly insulted Christians and Christianity in Algeria, MEC’s analyst on religious freedom in Algeria told Morning Star News.

“Bouhafs was defending Christianity, calling for more religious freedom and freedom of speech, which provoked the attempted attack,” said the analyst, who requested anonymity for security reasons.

An inmate who became aware of the plans warned prison guards, who separated Bouhafs from the inmates who sought to attack him before they could carry it out.

Bouhafs suffers from rheumatoid arthritis, which causes extremely painful swelling of his joints. He controls the swelling by eating a special, controlled diet that is unavailable in jail.

“At the end of September when his lawyer saw him, and early in October when his daughter visited him, his daughter reported that he had severely lost weight to a degree where it was hard to recognize him,” the analyst said. “The lawyer said he looked very frail and weak.”

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