E/CN.4/2003/66/Add.1 page 27 that polygamy was an affront to human dignity; it is also very dubious, not to say questionable, on religious grounds. A woman’s right to decide to marry and not to be married off must be recognized and protected. She should be entitled to divorce under the same conditions as a man. Her contribution to the maintenance of authority in the household should be acknowledged. She should not have to bear the brunt of divorce, being required to abandon the family home to the husband and finding herself in a legally untenable position and social circumstances that are, at times, especially difficult. It is hard, not to say unacceptable, to invoke Islam as the justification for something it explicitly or implicitly condemns. 150. As regards non-Muslims, there is, first, the problem of conversion from Islam to other religions, a question that sometimes arouses passions and is addressed in alarmist and somewhat exaggerated tones. Evangelists may indeed take advantage of the distress suffered by some young people in Kabylie and elsewhere, but the phenomenon is still a marginal one, and there is not always the lure of material assistance or a promised visa in the background. In any event, there must be no constraints in religion and international law guarantees the freedom to believe or not to believe, just as it guarantees the freedom to adopt the religion or belief of one’s choosing - and this, as the Human Rights Committee has stressed, also means the freedom to change one’s religion. While apostasy is not a crime in Algeria (though apostasy on the part of the husband is grounds for annulling a marriage), conversion is still frowned upon by society. The problem is a social one, and the State needs to be able to shape attitudes so that matters of conscience, which are personal, are not reduced to appearances at the expense of the truth. As far as international law is concerned, there is no justification for forbidding a Muslim woman to marry a non-Muslim man, and doing so is a form of discrimination which should be abolished or at least rendered inoperative. 151. If one excludes the case of some foreign Christian women married to Muslim Algerian men, there do not appear to be any particularly insoluble problems facing people raised as Christians. They do have freedom of belief. Their religious practices take place normally. Most of their religious property has been ceded voluntarily to the State, partly because of the small number of worshippers, but they still have enough; the only outstanding question is that of St. Marcienne’s church, which has been turned into a mosque. There is still the matter of importing religious books, which continues to be subject to an authorization procedure that merits review. There is also a need to review and strengthen the status of religious association established for Protestant churches in a manner compatible with article 18 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Declaration on the Elimination of All Forms of Intolerance and of Discrimination Based on Religion or Belief: this would avoid the risk of distorted perceptions of the religious activities concerned. 152. The only known problem affecting Jews, who have diminished in number considerably in recent times, had to do with a synagogue taken over by a city suburb for restoration and conversion to another use. When the central authorities intervened, the synagogue was restored to its owners. In any event, transfers of religious property under the law must take place by agreement with the religious representatives concerned, as has been the case with a substantial amount of Catholic Church property.