APS : Sunday, 09 December 2018
ORAN- Algeria, which guarantees the freedom to practice other religions for Non Muslims, is immune and has no fears for its Islam, affirmed Saturday, in Oran, Minister of Religious Affairs and Wakfs Mohamed Aissa.
Following the beatification ceremony of 19 catholic personalities at Santa Cruz chapel in Mudjadjo Mount (Oran), the minister affirmed that Algeria, by hosting this religious event, shows through its civilizational and universal dimensions that it is open to the other, immune and has no fears for its Islam.
“My presence in this ceremony as representative of President of the Republic Abdelaziz Bouteflika is politically significant in view of the Algerian Constitution which enshrines in its article 47 the freedom to exercise other religions for non Muslims and guarantees it,” said the minister.
“Nobody now has the right to question about the assassination of Tibhirine monks as well as that of other religious men, victims of the barbarism of indiscriminate terrorism which didn’t spare 114 imams,” added Mohamed Aissa.
Noting that “the families of the victims, including non Muslim religious men, acknowledged our national reconciliation and the bloody terrorism that Algeria experienced in the 1990s, and that the law on peace and national reconciliation came to fold its pages.”
The minister congratulated, on this occasion, Algeria for the organization of the beatification ceremony of the Christian religious men, victims of terrorism, who preferred to stay in Algeria in times of crisis.
“That is a message to the world that Algeria is a country of pluralism and openness which exports its experience in peace, living together and prevention from extremism,” he added.
