E/CN.4/2003/66/Add.1 page 15 cogent theological debate and the fact that a large proportion of the population, including religious leaders, were illiterate, were also cited as potential causes for departures from approved practice. 70. In spite of the assertion that, under Islam, freedom of belief is absolute and that religion admits of no constraints, concern was expressed about Muslims’ freedom of belief and the fact that the concept of the nation as a religious community would not allow enough scope within the group for the heterodox. 71. Social pressure was said to be such that a public declaration of atheism was unthinkable just as impossible as it would be for the young in some districts not to attend the mosque on Fridays or fast during Ramadan. 72. There is a general tendency to believe that all Algerians are Muslim and that Christians are foreigners living in Algeria. The effect of this is said to be strong social repudiation of Muslims who convert to other religions, who are objects of shame to their families. One female Algerian lawyer was said to have lost her entire clientele when she converted to Christianity, and to be at present without a livelihood. Her case was not considered to be an isolated one, and several people had lost their homes in similar circumstances. 73. While there is no law that expressly penalizes apostasy, the Family Code states that a marriage will be declared null and void if it is established that the spouse is an apostate (art. 32), and that apostates cannot inherit (art. 138). 2. Christians 74. The special, and sometimes difficult, position of many foreign non-Muslim women who have married Algerians and live in Algeria, and of the children of mixed marriages, was emphasized by several of the people interviewed. While some of these women continue to attend church and even take their children, they are nonetheless exceptional cases; on the other hand, they are often put under pressure by their in-laws who, refusing to accept that they are different, confine them to the house or press them to convert. The offspring of mixed marriages have no choice, since they are automatically registered as having their father’s religion. 75. Several of those interviewed, both official and unofficial, including the Minister of Religious Affairs, said that Christians were thought to go in for proselytising that could be described as an effort to convert the country to Christianity. 76. The President of the High Islamic Council and the Minister of Religious Affairs’ chef de cabinet drew attention, respectively, to an article in the Jérusalem Arabe dated 20 February 2002 under the headline “Des milliers d’Algériens sont christianisés dans un silence absolu des officials” (“Thousands of Algerians converted to Christianity and officialdom says nothing”), and an internal note from the Minister of Religious Affairs’ office on the question of conversions in Kabylie and elsewhere.