The west has had a great deal of sympathizing for the struggle of the people of Hong Kong. There has been an uproar about abuses against the Sudanese people. But no single western nation has said a word about the abuses taking place in Algeria. Opposition figures and now a growing number of Algerians interpret this silence as outright support of the European Union (EU) and France in particular, but also North America to the actions of few generals in Algeria. Economic, political and security interests are likely the key drivers of Western capitals’ silence to the practices of arbitrary arrests, illegal trials, and other actions.
Yet, no one can say that France, Britain, the US, Germany and everyone else is not aware of what is happening in the country. Because no one is expecting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Russia and China to even say one word considering their own stance of human rights issues. But the West has a moral obligation to say something, and yet it’s total radio silence. Today (Friday 10 October) dozens of people have been picked up just as they exited their weekly religious service, just on the ground that they may be joining the peaceful rallies demanding regime change. Just last week, two anti-government protesters Semmani Amazigh and Fentiche Ameziane, detained in the eastern city of Constantine were sentenced on 2 October to five years in prison and a fine of 100,000 dinars. Their crime was to take a photo with an Amazigh flag. These sentences bring into the fore the issue of the arbitrary arrests in Algeria. The National Committee for the Release of Detainees (CNLD) drew a list of 80 people arrested in connection with the popular Hirak movement, six of whom were released. The committee said the list is not final and it likely exceeds 130 according to media sources. Based on CNLD, some 40 registered detainees were arrested on 21 and 28 June, likely for carrying the Amazigh flag. After a lull that lasted most of the summer, a new cycle of arrests resumed during the rallies of 6 and 13 September, before easing a bit this week. On Sunday, 29 September, youth group the Rassemblement Action Jeunesse (RAJ), an association involved in the Hirak, denounced the provisional detention of its two activists, Karim Boutata and Ahcene Kadi. The group has been the target of police harassment with its two arrested activists being prosecuted for “inciting the violation of territorial integrity by broadcasting videos on Facebook” and “carrying signs and slogans attac
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king national unity”.
This week, a sixth-year medical student was detained by the Sidi M’Hamed court, just one year before completing his studies. He was arrested on 27 September, again for wearing an Amazigh flag as a neck warmer. In Oran, a young man was arrested for wearing the jersey of the JSK football team, which bears the same colors of the Amazigh flag, in what is a clear attack on the rights of Algerians to express their Amazigh ethnicity. The most moving case is that of Ziane Billel, a cancer patient arrested in Algiers on 13 September who is undergoing chemotherapy while in prison.
The situation of Hirak detainees is extraordinary considering that people are being jailed for laws they did not break, and for offenses that do not exist in the Algerian law. The opposition RCD party called the arrests as “hostage taking”. “The extension of the detentions, without legal basis, of the prisoners of opinion by a submitted justice system is not likely to ensure the solving of the political crisis. Everything indicates that they are being held hostage by a regime decided to plunge Algeria into chaos,” the party wrote in a communique released on 30 September.
Reacting to the imprisonment of two of its activists, RAJ denounces “a serious violation of the individual and collective freedoms of Algerians and an abuse of power by the judiciary whose objective is to silence the association and, through it, intimidate all activists for freedom and democracy in Algeria.”
“I think that the country is gradually sliding towards a situation of lawlessness,” worries human rights lawyer Mustapha Bouchachi when speaking about the case of opposition figure Karim Tabbou, who was re-arrested on 26 September after he was released the day before. “These procedures do not honor the country and cannot in any way appease the spirits or help lift Algeria out of the crisis,” said Bouchachi.
