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.
Takfir
During the Algerian Civil War of 1991-2002 the Islamist insurgent group the GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria) under amir Antar Zouabri issued a manifesto in 1996 entitled "The Sharp Sword", presenting Algerian society as resistant to jihad and lamented that the majority of Algerians had "forsaken religion and renounced the battle against its enemies". Zouabri at first took care to deny that the GIA had ever declared takfir on Algerian society itself. But during the month of Ramadan (January–February 1997) hundreds of civilians were killed in massacres, some with their throats cut. The massacres continued for months and culminated in August and September when hundreds of men women and children were killed in the villages of Rais, Bentalha and Beni Messous. Pregnant women were sliced open, children were hacked to pieces or dashed against walls, men's limbs were hacked off one by one, and, as the attackers retreated, they would kidnap young women to keep as sex slaves. The GIA issued a communiqué signed by Zouabri claiming responsibility for the massacres and justifying them—in contradiction to his manifesto—by declaring impious (takfir) all those Algerians who had not joined its ranks. While the GIA had been the "undisputed principal Islamist force" in Algeria two years earlier, the slaughters drained it of popular support and led to the end of "organized jihad" in Algeria. (The issue became complicated by evidence that security forces cooperated with the killers in preventing civilians from escaping, and may even have controlled the GIA.)