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A.C.N - Aid to the Church in Need Italian Office |
Religious Freedom in
the Majority Islamic Countries |
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Marocco Population:
27,225,000
Islam is the state religion, but there is liberty of worship for Christians and Jews; however they are nonetheless forbidden by law from any form of proselytism, and conversion from Islam is severely prohibited. Hassan II, the current ruler, declares himself to be a direct descendant of Mohammed. In reality the Christians are subjected to persecutions, the loss of their jobs and in some cases prison. Kathpress of January 21 1994 drew attention to the case of a Moroccan man of 29 who was condemned to three years’ imprisonment for having converted to Christianity. Mustafa Zemanda was arrested, together with 18 other people, because he had received Christian literature through the post. Whereas the other accused signed a declaration undertaking never to receive any such literature by post in the future, and thus obtained their liberty, Zemanda, a Protestant, refused to sign and was condemned under Article 220-221 of the Moroccan penal code, even though Paragraph 6 of the Constitution states that Islam is the state religion but that the liberty of worship of other faiths is guaranteed. The same source, exactly one year later, reported that at Teutan a musician from El Salvador had been condemned for having persuaded a Muslim to convert to Christianity. These three Christians, all arrested in Morocco for having attempted conversions to Christianity, are now free again. As the human rights organisation Christian Solidarity International has pointed out, the release of the Latin American musician, Gilberto Orellana, came about as the result of international pressure. Orellana, a member of a Baptist denomination and formerly director of the State Symphony Orchestra of Central America, had been teaching since 1992 at the conservatory in Teutan. On January 15 1995, he was condemned to prison for having persuaded a Muslim to convert to Christianity. Orellana denied the charges; his house was searched and the police discovered Bibles and Christian publications. His state of health was serious, because the conditions in the Moroccan prisons are very harsh. Arrested with him were five Moroccans, also accused of having been influenced by him. Three of them were released after having forsworn the Christian Faith, the other two were sentenced to eight months in prison but then released. The situation remains risky, however, and there is a fear of social pressure on the part of their Muslim fellow citizens. Morocco is almost entirely Muslim; the Christians number some three hundred thousand out of 27 million inhabitants. Offene Grenzen of April 1995 reported that, while the Moroccan Constitution guarantees the liberty of worship, in practice local believers face considerable difficulties. Six Christians were arrested for having assembled in one apartment. During the interrogation, three of them renounced their faith, while the others received sentences ranging from 8 to 12 months’ imprisonment. Thanks to international pressure they were released. A French group has sought out the few Christians scattered through Morocco to bring a word of comfort to them. This is a summary of those they spoke to, with fictitious names: Ahmed lives in a village in the Atlas mountains and like so many other Moroccans he was searching for a meaning in life when he began a course on the Bible. Then he lost his sight and broke off. He went to Europe to learn Braille and to be a telephone operator. In those two years no one spoke to him about the Gospel. On returning to Morocco he ended up in prison as a result of a dispute. One of his cell companions was a Christian, condemned to six months for his faith. Ahmed was converted and left prison a new man. He listened to audio cassettes, read his own books for the blind and was happy. The police, having discovered that he was a Christian and unwilling to abandon his Faith, confiscated the books in his home and took him to a town some 200 miles away. Ahmed was interrogated and for two days every kind of psychological pressure was brought to bear on him. The police looked everywhere for someone who could read these books in Braille. Now Ahmed is free again, but without his books. Aisha is a Moroccan woman of 30. Her father was an authority, highly regarded, a direct descendant of Mohammed. She herself is therefore a "great great granddaughter" of the founder of Islam. She practised Islam faithfully and conscientiously until a doubt came to her: "How can God want me to be holy if I am quite incapable of being so?" Someone gave her a Bible and suddenly she felt both estranged from and drawn by the two different faiths. In the end she was converted to Christianity, but problems soon began at school where she was teaching Arabic and the Koran. Four of her pupils were Christians and the others had serious doubts about the Koran. Once her convictions had been discovered, the principal spent 14 days in her classroom, checking carefully on everything she said. At the first small mistake she was dismissed. Now the situation has stabilised and her colleagues have accepted her different way of seeing things. In June 1997, at Rabat, the third meeting of the joint Islamic Catholic Committee was held. This has tackled such themes as the rights of the minorities and the question as to how Christians and Muslims can have dialogue with one another. The participants reasserted their sincere desire to contribute to the overcoming of difficulties and to encourage a more active collaboration. The government is taking steps against the militant Islamic students, who are occupying the universities and preventing them from functioning. One of the provisions will be the limitation of access to the faculties, with more thorough checks. So far, 37 students have been arrested and some of them already sentenced to terms of one or two years. The universities were barricaded for a long period in 1998 by the fundamentalists, who were demanding better transport and accommodation for the extra-mural students. Fides reports that a group of 29 Spanish priests has responded to the invitation of the Archbishop of Tangiers, the Frenchman Monsignor José Antonio Peteiro Freire, and taken part in the meeting on the Maghreb and Islam from September 2nd to 9th. The meeting was organised in collaboration with the secretary of the Pontifical Council for Migrants and travellers in Barcelona, Father Ignasi Marqués Rodríguez, to help the priests to better understand and minister to the many impoverished Moroccan immigrants living in Spain who come to their reception centres there. Together with the Archbishop of Tangiers and the parish priest of Althoceima, Enric Enguix, the Spanish priests visited Tetuan, Asilah, Larache, Ksar el Kebir, Keknes and Fez. During their visit the priests met local teachers and were able to see the social work carried out by religious sisters, priests and lay workers - literacy schools, dispensaries, refuges, homes for the aged and for the handicapped. Faithful to the teachings of St Francis, the Archbishop of Tangier explained: "let us live together with the Muslims without forcing them to change their religion". "Being a presence of the Church in a country officially Muslim where it is forbidden to preach other faiths" - this was the challenge for the Church in Morocco, he said – "to live the Gospel among the Muslims". The vision of the mission in Maghreb, again according to the Archbishop, is not so much the plantatio ecclesiale as the service of the Kingdom of God "which will come about progressively in the measure that men learn to love one another, to forgive one another and to serve one another". |
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