TIZI-OUZOU, Algeria, May 23, 2019 (Morning Star News) – Authorities in north-central Algeria sealed shut another church building on Wednesday (May 22), closing it and its Bible school, Christian leaders said.
Citing a law that requires authorization for non-Muslim places of worship, gendarmes locked the doors of the evangelical church building in Boudjima, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northeast of Tizi-Ouzou, capital of the province of the same name in Kabylie Region.
Church pastor Youcef Ourahmane told Morning Star News that he has applied for a permit and, like all applications in Algeria, it has sat unattended. Summoned by phone to the gendarmerie brigade of Makouda yesterday (May 22), he and the top officials from the Protestant Church of Algeria (EPA) umbrella group were told that the Tizi-Ouzou provincial head had ordered the closure of the church and the Bible school.
“We have received an order of execution, and we must act,” the brigade chief said over the efforts of Pastor Ourahmane, EPA President Salah Chalah and EPA council member Arezki Iamrache to dissuade him, the pastor said. “We are very sorry to get there, but we are only the executors.”
Pastor Ourahmane is also vice president of the EPA.
“I am sad to have to face this injustice,” Pastor Ourahmane told Morning Star News. “We prayed for those authorities who are persecuting us, as our Lord Jesus…
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