On Monday, ADF International hosted an event in Parliament about freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) in Algeria, highlighting ongoing challenges particularly for Christian and Ahmadi Muslim minorities whose rights under Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights have been repeatedly infringed by the Algerian government.

Julie Jones, director of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on International Freedom of Religion or Belief (APPG FoRB), chaired and opened the event with an introduction highlighting how the Algerian government’s behavior stridently contradicts guarantees of religious freedom in its own constitution. Julie was followed by Lizzie Francis, UK legal counsel for ADF International, who spoke in greater detail about the untenable situation in Algeria.

She explained the history of religious freedom violations in Algeria, highlighting how Algeria’s unique religious demography (with over 99 percent Sunni Muslim and Islam being the official state religion) has resulted in significant challenges for Christian and non-Sunni Muslim minorities who face censorship, blasphemy laws, and other government restrictions of their free religious practice and expression.

Lizzie was followed by Pastor Youssef Ourahmane, a Christian convert and pastor in the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA French: Eglise protestante d’Algérie), who has been sentenced to heavy fines and a prison sentence for the so-called crime of “illegal worship” for leading his church. He spoke about how the Algerian government has forced the closure of all but one of the EPA’s several dozen churches in Algeria.

Pastor Youssef highlighted how EPA Christians, unlike other Christian denominations in Algeria such as Catholics, are particularly targeted because their membership largely consists of Algerian converts from Islam, numbering about 160,000 currently. He spoke about the arbitrary arrests, ambiguous charges leading to illegal detainments and indeterminate prison sentences, and blasphemy laws punishing Christians for vague offenses such as “shaking the faith of a Muslim.”

He also spoke about his own arbitrary arrest and imprisonment, having undergone intense interrogations and being condemned to two years imprisonment with a remarkable lack of evidence. This was in July 2023; the sentence has since been reduced due to the lack of evidence and continues to be appealed.

After Pastor Youssef, Miles Windsor, Director of Strategic Campaigns, International Strategies at the Religious Freedom Institute spoke about Algeria’s addition to the USCIRF international watch list in 2022 and again in 2024, which seemingly provoked the forced closure of all the EPA churches but one in an appearance of growing impunity and retaliation. He expressed concerns that international condemnations of Algeria’s actions without corresponding actions to impose consequences on the Algerian government for its violations of basic human rights has actually emboldened the government in its continued violations. He further spoke about the importance for the UK and other nations to be willing to use the tools at their disposal to create consequences for offending regimes, such as by creating economic consequences, while always continuing to seek diplomatic solutions.

Fareed Ahmad, who serves on the National Executive of the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community UK as the National Secretary for External Affairs, followed Miles and spoke about the experience of the Ahmadiyya Muslim minority community in Algeria as distinct from that of the EPA. He highlighted how the same sorts of baseless charges are levelled against them as against minority Christian communities, and how the Ahmadiyya community has been portrayed as both anti-Islam and anti-state (which in Algeria are frequently synonymous) by government ministers, thereby inviting cultural persecution against the community. There has also been a recent uptick in illegal arrests in November.

Finally, Jim Shannon MP, chair of the APPG FoRB concluded the meeting with remarks about the importance of acknowledging the example of those who persist in sincere belief even as they face severe opposition.