Freedom of religion in Algeria
Freedom of religion in Algeria is regulated by the Algerian Constitution, which declares Islam to be the state religion (Article 2) but also declares that "freedom of creed and opinion is inviolable" (Article 36); it prohibits discrimination, Article 29 states "All citizens are equal before the law. No discrimination shall prevail because
of birth, race, sex, opinion or any other personal or social condition or circumstance".
In practice, the government generally respects this, with some limited exceptions. The government follows a de facto policy of tolerance by allowing, in limited instances, the conduct of religious services by non-Muslim faiths in the capital which are open to the public. The small Christian and tiny Jewish populations generally practice their faiths without government interference. The law does not recognize marriages between Muslim women and non-Muslim men; it does however recognise marriages between Muslim men and non-Muslim women. By law, children follow the religion of their fathers, even if they are born abroad and are citizens of their (non-Muslim) country of birth.
Berber Spring
Since its independence in 1962, Algeria has a single-party system, governed by the FLN. After 132 years of French colonization, one of the goals of the Arab nationalist party FLN is to institute Arabization measures that will implement Arab as the national language in administration, schools and public services in general. Like most ex-colonies, the independence of Algeria stressed the need for "recovery" of the language, as a symbol of the "recovery" of a nation. Under French colonization, Arab language was disregarded. In 1938, the French government even implemented a law that declared Arab a foreign language in Algeria. The nationalist party of the independence, the FLN, has therefore a sort of "arabic" conception of Algeria, an Arab and Muslim Algeria, that does not recognize the pluralism of cultures, identities and languages in Algeria. For example, the 1976 National Charter did not take into account any Berber claims for recognition.