TIZI-OUZOU, Algeria, September 26, 2019 (Morning Star News) – Authorities today sealed shut a church building in Tigzirt, Algeria, two days after shutting another building serving two churches without prior notice, sources said.
Acting on orders from the governor of Tizi-Ouzou Province, eight police officers arrived at 11:45 a.m. on Tuesday (Sept. 24) at the Church of Boghni building and sealed the doors and windows of the Protestant church building in Boghni, 35 kilometers (21 miles) southwest of the city of Tizi-Ouzou, pastor Tahar Chergui said.
“I was surprised when one of the police officers contacted me to meet them at the site where our church is,” Pastor Chergui told Morning Star News. “I had not received any notice; they went straight to proceed with the closure by sealing. They could have warned us before; why didn’t they?”
The building serves the 190 members of Pastor Chergui’s church as well as another Protestant church serving nearly 200 people from Assi-Youcef village, he said.
Officers posted a notice on the building indicating that it was closed due to lack of registration under Algeria’s 2006 law on non-Muslim worship: “We, the police of Boghni, inform the whole population of Boghni that the premises illegally used by the named Tahar Chergui [address] to celebrate non-Muslim worship was closed and sealed by order of the governor dated Sept. 18, 2019….
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