Algeria: a specialist in Islam sentenced to prison for attacking religion
Islamologist Saïd Djabelkhir at the Algiers courthouse, April 22, 2021. AFP - RYAD KRAMDI
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Three years in prison for "offending the precepts of Islam and Muslim rites" were pronounced this Thursday in Algiers against Saïd Djabelkhir, a renowned scholar, specialist in Islam.
He is notably criticized for having written that the sacrifice of the sheep existed before Islam and for having criticized the early marriage of girls in certain Muslim societies.
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He recalled on Facebook that some Muslim practices, such as the sacrifice of sheep, date back to pre-Islamic times.
Saïd Djabelkhir receives three years in prison under article 144-2 bis of the Algerian penal code, which punishes attacks on religion.
Coming from an individual and not from the prosecution, the complaint should have been rejected on the form, believes one of the defense lawyers. Master Wahab Hamidi is worried about this condemnation targeting a renowned specialist in Islam: “
He is someone very well known, he is invited to the media, including the public. It is solicited by foreign media, either from the Middle East or from the West. Because there is a whole debate between reformers and Salafists. But you don't go to court because the person has expressed a contrary opinion.
"
The lawyers are very surprised by the severity of the sentence.
They denounce an attack on freedom of expression revealing the current hardening of the Algerian authorities.
According to the lawyer, this court decision is part of a particular context, namely the repression by the authorities of the Hirak movement.
“
This instrumentalisation of justice, as we know, there is no one who will tell us that justice in Algeria is independent.
So this hardening comes within this resistance of the regime not to give in to any desire for change,
”affirms Me Wahab Hamidi.
The academic will appeal in the week and says he is ready to go to cassation if necessary.
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Algeria
Islam
Justice