ALGIERS, May 31 (Reuters) - Algeria hit back on Saturday at foreign accusations minority Christians are harassed, saying Protestant evangelicals were secretly trying to divide Algerians to colonise the mainly Muslim north African country.

Abu Amrane Chikh, head of the government-appointed Higher Islamic Council, said uproar in the West over a recent prosecution of an Algerian woman on a charge of practising Christianity was being fomented for the benefit of foreigners.

"There are some church evangelists and reformist journalists who want to sow discord among brothers, and their long-term political goal is to create a Christian minority coupled with some foreign institutions," he said in an interview with the website of the El Khabar daily newspaper.

By Hamid Ould Ahmed, Reuters, May 31, 2008

The second meeting of the Evangelical Christian-Muslim Dialogue convened in Tripoli during January 3-6, 2008, to engage in conversation on the themes of “Human Nature and the Divine Presence.” The dialogue, which followed a November, 2006 gathering in Chicago, Illinois, began with a welcome keynote address by Dr. Muhammad Ahmed Sharif, Secretary General of the World Islamic Call Society, which hosted the interfaith event.

Stephen Sizer web site, Jan 14, 2008

In the past few years, increasing numbers of Westerners have been converting to Islam. Agence France Presse recently reported annual figures in France alone of 30,000 to 50,000. But a new phenomenon - largely unreported in the Western media - is occurring: Muslims, especially in the Maghreb (north-west Africa) are becoming Christians.

Olivier Guitta, Published in the Jerusalem Post, July 5, 2005

Casablanca's "Morocco Times" writes about ?a rumour quickly taken over by the media, and according to which massive numbers of Moroccans converted to Christianity under the influence of Anglo-Saxon, protestant missionaries, who went as far as distributing ?conversion kits? to Moroccans living abroad on the way back to Morocco for the holidays.

"The country's press goes to much trouble to write about a tiny minority, it is necessary to analyse the reasons which led them to do so"

By Houda Filali-Ansary, Morocco TIMES, March 9, 2005

Muslim immigrants are pouring into Europe, but most churches there are unaware or unconcerned about the implications -- and the opportunity they have to reach Islamic nations.

Christian mission organizations based in London has so far been unable to raise support for reaching Muslims.However, several ministries and churches headed by former Muslims are reaching out to the immigrants.

Charisma News Service, Jan 13, 2003

Lybia is one of the most restrictive countries in the world and forbids evangelism of nationals. Churches are allowed among the nation's large expatriate workforce only

Matranatha Christian Journal, August 27, 2002

Further evidence that the Islamist regime in Sudan has begun enacting harsh Muslim punishments against both Christian and Muslim citizens within the past three months

by Compass Direct News, March. 6, 2002

The stones should not be so large that a person dies after being hit with two of them, nor so small as to be defined as pebbles, but must cause severe injury," it says. "This makes it clear that the purpose of stoning is to inflict grievous pain on the victim, in a process leading to his or her slow death."

By Patrick Goodenough, Religion Today, Feb 11, 2002

Security officials picked him up as he was returning from a personal discipleship appointment with a local pastor. He was tortured and beaten and he lost three fingernails pulled out with pliers

by Barbara G. Baker, Compass, October 11, 2001

President Bashir said since Sudan was the largest country in Africa and rich in resources, it needed more people to aid development.

BBC, Wednesday, 15 August, 2001