Morocco Takes Tough Line on Missionaries

IslamOnline.net & News Agencies

RABAT – Taking a new tough line on proselytizing in the North African country, Morocco has expelled scores of Christian missionaries for converting local Muslims.

"They changed their behavior to begin doing missionary work with young children," Communications Minister Khalid Naciri told Reuters Friday, March 12.

Up to 70 foreign Christian missionaries have been expelled from Morocco this month for trying to convert local Muslims.

Among those expelled were couples from Britain and the Netherlands who adopted Moroccan children and a group that ran a children's home in the Middle Atlas mountains.

The expulsion followed complaints from locals that foreigners were targeting minors and exploiting the poverty of local people to shake their faith.

“(They) took advantage of the poverty of some families and targeted their young children, whom they took in hand, in violation of the kafala (adoption) procedures for abandoned or orphaned children," said Naciri.

He vowed that the government would be "severe with all those who play with religious values".

There are estimated 800 active European proselytizers in Morocco, where some 1,000 people converted to Christianity in 2004, according to unofficial estimates.

Muslims make up 99 percent of the Arab country's population, while Christians and Jews represent a meager one percent.

Western and Arab reports have repeatedly spoken about an increasing proselytizing activities in the Arab Maghreb.

France's Le Monde newspaper had estimated that some 500 Tunisians converted to Christianity in 2006.

It claimed thousands in Algeria's tribal areas have converted to Christianity since 1992.

Tolerance

The Moroccan government said that the expulsion had nothing to do with religious freedom.

"This decision is not against one religion or another,” said Naciri.

“Morocco is, and will remain, open-minded and tolerant.”

Morocco allows freedom of worship to mostly foreign Christians and a few thousand indigenous Jews, but proselytism is illegal.

"All churches have their place on the street in Morocco and Christians practise their religion freely," said Naciri.

Proselytism by foreign Christians has already drawn fire from Christians and Jews in the Muslim country.

The Roman Catholic Archbishop of Rabat, Vincent Landel, and the president of the Evangelical Church in Morocco Father Jean-Luc Blanc said the expelled missionaries “were not acting in accordance with the law of the Catholic Church."

Proselytism was "an act to be condemned," they said.

"Our goal is to take part in the building of a Morocco where Muslims, Jews and Christians are happy to share their responsibility in building a country where people can live together in justice, peace and reconciliation."

Rabbi Joseph Israel, president of the rabbinical chamber at the court in Casablanca, also spoke out against proselytism.

"Morocco is a nation of tolerance," he said. "Here, we practise all religions -- Islam, Judaism and Christianity – without constraints or limits.”

"There is no place for the practice of proselytism."