Source: World Watch Monitor, July 12, 2017<\/p>\n
A Christian imprisoned for three years for \u201cinsulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad\u201d in his social media posts has received a partial presidential pardon.<\/p>\n
Slimane Bouhafs, who converted to Christianity from Islam in 1997, was arrested almost a year ago (July 31, 2016) for posting a message on social media about the light of Jesus overcoming the \u201clie\u201d of Islam and its prophet. Such a message was judged by the authorities to insult Islam\u2014the state religion in Algeria, according to its constitution.<\/p>\n
He was sentenced to three years\u2019 imprisonment on September 6, 2016.<\/p>\n
But now his sentence has been reduced by 16 months, following a partial pardon granted by Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of Algeria\u2019s independence (July 5).<\/p>\n
This pardon means he could be released nine months from now.<\/p>\n
According to his daughter, Bouhafs\u2019 health has deteriorated significantly since his arrest, exacerbating an existing condition\u2014he suffers from inflammatory rheumatism, which requires a diet that is impossible to ensure in prison.<\/p>\n
He reportedly also suffers aggression from his fellow prisoners because of his Christian faith, about which he is open.<\/p>\n
\u00bb Read full story<\/a>. Thanks for praying.<\/p>\n \u00bb Please also continue to lift up Jeff Woodke, a missionary abducted in Niger last October whose wife pleads with abductors to contact her<\/a>, and for Andrew Brunson<\/a>, a believer imprisoned in Turkey since October. According to a mutual friend, \u201cAndrew is in a cell built for eight, but occupied by 20 extremist Muslims who are harassing him as a \u2018dirty Christian.\u2019 Pray for love, forgiveness, comfort, his family, and a quick release.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: World Watch Monitor, July 12, 2017 A Christian imprisoned for three years for \u201cinsulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad\u201d in his social media posts has received a partial presidential pardon. Slimane Bouhafs, who converted to Christianity from Islam in 1997, was arrested almost a year ago (July 31, 2016) for posting a message on … Continue reading ALGERIA: Jailed Christian Gets Partial Presidential Pardon<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7274","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7274","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7274"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7274\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7275,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7274\/revisions\/7275"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7274"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7274"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7274"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}