E/CN.4/2003/66/Add.1 page 17 84. According to the same sources, each mosque serves an average of 1,000 of the faithful, and 15 million people attend the mosques on Fridays. It was also pointed out that smaller, separate areas have been set aside for women to pray in. 85. Mosque-building is done by citizens themselves, who form associations and take up collections for the purpose. Whether or not the State has contributed financially towards its construction, a mosque once built becomes part of the country’s endowment assets. According to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, no financing has come from abroad for any mosque other than the one in Constantine and an Islamic cultural centre in the town of Chlef whose construction was partly or wholly financed by Saudi Arabia. The Ministry of the Interior’s Director of Public Liberties nevertheless reports that money arriving in suitcases from the Middle East still appears to finance the country’s mosques and Koranic schools, and that such funds are very difficult to monitor. 86. Under a decree dating from 1 December 1998, the Minister of Religious Affairs appoints the stewards for endowments, who must be Muslims and can be relieved of their duties if they take up alcohol, drugs or gambling. 87. On the personnel side, according to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, the country has 2,629 imams teaching in elementary schools, 852 imams employed as teachers and 3,769 as high school teachers, 7,304 Koranic instructors, 2,659 muezzins, 4,470 supervisors and 25 inspectors. Female guides have been introduced in mosques to counsel women. 88. The vast majority of teaching staff are civil servants with an average level of education or below, and this, according to non-governmental sources, explains why part of the population is dismissive of these imams who are often regarded as lowly representatives of the State. Such assessments are not always objective. 89. According to the Ministry of Religious Affairs, efforts are being made to ensure that Muslim religious officials are better educated. Since the 1980s the country has had six training institutions for imams which are currently attended by 960 students of Islamic Shariah law; the students are selected by competitive examination and receive a two-year training. To date, 5,271 imams have been trained at Islamic institutes. Seminars for imams are held regularly by the High Islamic Council or wilaya scientific councils to discuss questions such as Friday sermons. 90. Committees on non-binding legal rulings (fatwa) have been set up within the scientific councils responsible, at the wilaya level, for overseeing imams, to provide the necessary guidance in accordance with national law, as have disciplinary councils to punish departures from approved practice. The State is said to confine itself to guiding and supervising imams; just one case of an imam being dismissed (he supposedly refused to say the prayers for the dead over a body brought back from Europe) was brought to the Special Rapporteur’s attention. 91. Yet serious doubts were voiced, at both the governmental and non-governmental levels, about the training that imams receive and how effectively and rigorously they are supervised. Inflammatory sermons are apparently still being delivered in many mosques without the State