The evangelism in Morocco, and catholics?

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CONVERTS/ Yussef, Alí and Abdelhak are Muslims who committed the worse sin against their religion: to become to the Christianity

Christians of Morocco under harassment

RD

Domingo, 26 of February 2006

The worse time for the Christians is Ramadan. Their neighbors watch to them like “rare tiny beasts”
“Are you spy or missionary?”. Gilberto Orellana still has recorded the question of the commissioner of police of Tetuán that interrogated length and laying to him one decade ago. The head kept the forms, but some of their subordinates insulted to him and they threatened the time to him that shouted to him: “Dinos what is what beams in Morocco!”. They raised the hand to him, but never they beat to him, according to account Ignacio Cembrero in the Pais.

After years of stay in the capital of the old Spanish protectorate, Orellana had been discovered. This Salvadoran who exerted like professor of music in the conservatory of Tetuan was also evangelical shepherd that made an effort, with much discretion, in turning to colleagues and students.

Except a small Jewish minority of 3,500 souls, in Morocco all the population is, in theory, Muslim. The Penal Code recognizes the freedom of cult, but its article 220 also anticipates between six months and three years of jail for all that that tries to break the Muslim faith, that is to say, for that they make proselitismo.

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"it only has, let us say, excess of fervor in small places ".

“the problem”, it continues while it watches of reojo looking for some hypothetical scavenger seated near our table, “no longer they are the authorities” although in Massa, to the south of the country, Jamaa Ait Bakrim was condemned in 2003 to 15 years by proselitism and destructions of public properties. "the problem is the relatives, the neighbors, the society as a whole ", it insists. "] majzen surroundings of the king wants to know everything what we do, but no longer it wants to prevent it whenever we are cautious ". "our security also worries to Him, that fanatics do not agredan to us ".

Been born in a numerous family of upper middle class, Alí, that it finishes exceeding the 40 years, it had a religious crisis in its adolescence. “the God of the Islam did not include/understand to me and 16 years I ended declaring to me atheistic”, it remembers. "the Islam, so and as it is interpreted at the moment, it is a slab ". “When entering the university a companion left the Bible me”. “I found a God that accepted to me like was later to change to me”. One became. It deepened the knowledge of its new religion through a course by correspondence. "It received letters without letterheads of an Arab country, in very Muslim theory ".

“It knows that, for my surroundings, it is more acceptable than he is atheist who Christian?”, it indicates the shepherd, married and father of two children. "To be atheistic it is a youth error, to be Christian is a treason ", it assures. “you have not only rejected the Islam but that you have gone to the religion of the French colonizador”. “people think that you have become because therefore it will be easier to you to emigrate legally to Europe or are going to obtain in return some economic benefit”. A sounding of North American institute PEW indicates that 61% of the Moroccans have a negative opinion of the Christianity.

Radouan Benchekroun, president of the Council of the Oulemas (wise monks) of Casablanca, it contributes to foment this criterion: "the evangelical ones deceive people, they attract it with money and social support ". “They propagate lies on the Islam and the Muslims”, it adds. “To apostatize its religion it is the greater sin than a Muslim can commit”, it sentences.

For that reason, as Alí revealed its new faith, it was losing friends. “it was not easy”, it recalls. "it requested to Them that they judged me by my behavior, not by my religious election ". “Some accepted it and tried to include/understand it”. "Even between my 12 brothers, three became ". In the family of Alí, like in other many, the first that they gave step was the women.

"To be Christian it is, for them, to be freer and more equal to the men ", Abdelhak explains, another evangelical shepherd who has founded a club of supposedly fanatical friends of the computer science cover to be able to meet more easily with his faithfuls. Abdelhak did not have to become because, it stresses removing chest, “I have the privilege to have Christian parents”. They decided on the right Protestantism after independence, it does means century.

 

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Sundays and the holidays the Christians meet, in order to say, in particular houses, generally the one of its shepherd. “usually we are between 15 and 20 because to congregate more people it would call the attention”, it indicates Alí. “For that reason in my address the entrances and the exits are spaced”. "In the old helmet of the city there is also a handful of Christian craftsmen who, as they work Sunday, Fridays pray to the Gentleman ".

The converts do not frequent the official churches because they want to create the hers own one, Arab or berebere, or because to do it would put it in hardships to parish priests and foreign shepherds, that Rabat could blame of proselitism. In Christmas some, nevertheless, they do not hold and they cross the door of the temple. "the pair of police of guard during the cult nor perturbed and the shepherd, that it knows me, it watched to me surprised while it seated to me between the faithfuls ", Abdelhak remembers.

The worse thing for the Christians, according to all the interviewed people agree, they are the uninformed Muslim celebration and month of the Ramadán. "Although we do not eat in the middle of the street during Ramadán we respected abstinence either, nor we celebrated iftar rupture of uninformed ], nor degollamos a lamb in the occasion of the Aid ", it emphasizes Alí. “It is then when the neighbors watch to you as a rare tiny beast and you really feel different”.

Next to the few shepherds recognized by the authorities many are arriving at Morocco these last years other, like long ago Gilberto Orellana, whose declared activity, often cooperator, it hides its persistence missionary. The majority is American although in its rows they also appear some Latin Americans. "the Bush Administration encourages to them and its Embassy in Rabat offers them,
a certain shelter even affirms an credited European diplomat in that capital.

How many they are? The press considers in 500 the new shepherds, frequently formed in three evangelical universities of the United States, and scattered by all the country. The number does not surprise the recognized churches. Its anxious disembarkation until the point of which the Istiqlal (Independence), the second parliamentary force, interpeló, in May in both cameras, to the minister of Religious Subjects, Amhed Taoufik on “the evangelical offensive”. "the Moroccan town (…) it demands concrete measures to guarantee its spiritual security ", AT Tajdid insisted, organ of the moderate islamistas.

Taoufik threw balls in its answer outside although his predecessor yes sent to circulate to oulemas so that they put in guard the population. By those dates the Department of the Interior also expelled a surafricano shepherd, Malan Dean, of Marraquech. But although them incomoda the evangelical activism, to the authorities it is to them difficult to go more far. To Rabat important delegations of the evangelical churches of the United States go that is entrevistan with ministers. “they benefit from a favor treatment because ours they majzen does not save efforts to please to Bush”, Journal assures the independent weekly magazine Him.

Great majority of evangelical

In its parliamentary intervention Abdelhamid Aouad, of the nationalistic party Istiqlal, it evaluated in 40.000 the turned Moroccans and noticed that the evangelical objective era to obtain that in 15 years, 10% of the population were Christian.

The number is very exaggerated. Jean-Luc Blanc, president of the Evangelical Church of Morocco, the one that enjoys official recognition, the reduction to “a bracket of between 800 and 1,000”, of that only 200 would be catholic. “It is truth that the number increases”. “they almost touch to a shepherd by I talk”, it emphasizes.

Most optimistic of the evangelical shepherds interviewed they calculate that their faithfuls rise to 3,500, to that there is to add other 500 catholics, Anglicans, et cetera.

Blanc establishes two categories of converts "Those that try to tie to traditional churches and that are accommodated people, many of them professors or pertaining to liberal professions ".

“the Christian fundamentalists preach rather between the worked against classes and they take advantage of its weakness to turn to them”, it continues putting of relief its discrepancies with the Anglo-Saxon missionaries with whom as soon as it maintains contacts.

 

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This French shepherd, that it receives Moroccan journalists, it explains to them that neither he nor the other foreign shepherds or priests with official statute make proselitism. “We respected the law”, it stresses.

In spite of its prudence it finishes, once in a while, losing the patience when they ask to him if the evangelical militantismo supposes a danger for Morocco. “It watches”, it answered in an occasion, “the great question consists rather of finding out if the religious freedom is a threat for Morocco”. Blanc does not respond to its question but Alí does, Moroccan shepherd. "It is a basic freedom, but the islamist pressure causes that the State does not dare to consecrate it in the laws ".