Fears for imprisoned Algerian Christian as Ramadan begins

As Ramadan begins, the daughter of an Algerian Christian serving three years in jail for “insulting Islam and the prophet Muhammad” on Facebook says she’s worried about the abuse her father could suffer after he was transferred to a third different prison.

Slimane Bouhafs, who is eight months into his sentence, is now in a prison in the coastal city of Jijel, 300km east of the capital, Algiers, having been transferred from Constantine, 150km south of Jilel.

This latest transfer took place despite the family’s request that he be moved to a prison in Béjaïa, in the Kabylie region where the family is from and where there is a relatively large Christian community.

“In Constantine Prison, my father suffered physical assaults and his psychological condition seriously deteriorated. At the approach of the month of Ramadan, his situation seriously worries us because he is a Christian.”

–Thilleli Bouhafs

Both Constantine and Jijel, on the other hand, are known to have radical Islamist movements, and Bouhafs’ family fears that in Ramadan inter-religious tensions could increase.

“Since his arrival in Constantine Prison, my father suffered physical assaults and his psychological condition seriously deteriorated,” his daughter, Thilleli, told World Watch Monitor.

“At the approach of the month of Ramadan, my father’s situation seriously worries us, because he is a Christian, so we were anxiously awaiting news of where he would be transferred to. We were then surprised to learn that his transfer to Béjaïa was denied and that the authorities instead transferred him to Jijel.”

On 23 May, the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH) organised a rally in support of Bouhafs, who converted to Christianity in 1997 and is a well-known social activist, in Béjaïa’s city centre.