Morocco: Nation’s Highest Islamic Institute Issues Fatwa Demanding Death Sentence For Christian Converts

BosNewsLife – “Christian converts in Morocco feared for their future Thursday, April 25, after the country’s highest Islamic institute issued a fatwa demanding the death penalty for Muslims who renounce their religion.

The Supreme Ulema Council of Morocco (CSO), a body of Islamic scholars headed by King Mohammed VI, said that Muslims who reject their faith ‘should be condemned to death.’  CSO is the only institution entitled to issue ‘fatwas’, or religious decrees, in Morocco.

The ministry of Islamic affairs declined to comment on the issue.

The fatwa dates back to April 2012 when a legal report was prepared by the government, but it wasn’t published at the time, according to local media.

Mahjoub El Hiba, a senior human rights official in the Moroccan government, denied to reporters that the government received a fatwa on ‘apostasy’ — the word used for abandoning Islam — as the Arabic-language daily Akhbar al-Youm had claimed.

CRACKDOWN FEARED

The different statements could not be immediately reconciled, but local Christians expressed concern about the situation, saying it could lead to a new crackdown on the country’s tiny Christian community of some 22,000 people.

‘There’s a lot of confusion and discussion in Morocco right now about the fatwa,’ said a pastor near the city of Marrakech in a statement distributed by advocacy group International Christian Concern (ICC). ‘We fear that if the fatwa is approved, the government will use it to harass us and even arrest us during our meetings,’ the church leader added, speaking on condition of anonymity.

‘The [Islamic] fundamentalists will have an excuse to harm us,’ the pastor reportedly said.

ICC Regional Manager for the Middle East, Aidan Clay, agrees that the fatwa adds to concern about the position of Christians in the Islamic nation of over 32 million people.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘Arab Spring’ Contagion Strikes Morocco: Islamist ‘Justice’ Party Wins Vote in Election – “Morocco’s moderate Islamist PJD party won the most seats in the country’s parliamentary election, final results showed Sunday, in the latest sign of a resurgence of faith-based movements since the Arab Spring uprisings. The victory for Morocco’s Justice and Development Party came a month after Tunisia handed power to a previously-banned party of moderate Islamists. Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood is also expected to do well in an election starting Monday.” Read more.