How unsurprising. This time around, from comes the same old story of a former Muslim who converted to ending up on trial for having done so. faces up to three years in prison for “abandoning the Islamic faith without government permission.”

Apparently, in Algeria, one needs a special permit to be a Christian.

It seems almost pedantic to say this, but it’s worth saying again: I honestly want to believe that there is something redeeming, or at least redeemable, about . I want to believe that it’s something more than a rather large cult obsessed with and violent death. I want to believe that it will not, given even the slightest opportunity, immediately and inexorably resort to persecuting those who do not follow it.

And I keep finding myself disappointed as story after story, from all around the world, makes it impossible to believe just those sort of things.