Human rights defenders and others were banned from holding some meetings and demonstrations.
People suspected of security-related offences were arrested and detained incommunicado.
Women victims of gender-based violence were not provided with redress. Foreign nationals
were arrested and expelled without recourse to appeal. Christians were prosecuted
for practising their faith without permission, and others faced trial for offending
Islamic tenets. No executions were carried out, but over 130 people were sentenced
to death. The authorities failed to take any steps to combat impunity for enforced
disappearances and other serious past human rights abuses.
The government maintained the state of emergency in force since 1992.
At least 45 civilians and some 100 members of the military and security forces were
killed in continuing political violence, mainly in bomb attacks by armed groups, particularly
Al-Qa’ida Organization in the Islamic Maghreb. Over 200 alleged members of Islamist
armed groups were reported to have been killed by security forces in skirmishes or
search operations, often in unclear circumstances, prompting fears that some may have
been extrajudicially executed.
Strikes, riots and demonstrations by people demanding jobs, housing and better salaries
punctuated the year. Some protesters were arrested and prosecuted.
The government said it had invited seven UN Special Rapporteurs to visit Algeria but
it did not extend invitations to the Special Rapporteur on torture or the UN Working
Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, despite their long-pending requests
to carry out investigative visits.
The authorities banned some meetings and demonstrations by human rights defenders,
journalists and families of victims of enforced disappearance.
In March, the authorities stopped the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights
from using its intended venue to hold its annual conference, forcing the organization
to change venue at short notice.
The authorities banned a protest by journalists and others calling for more press
freedom, scheduled for 3 May in Algiers, and briefly detained four of the organizers.
From August, the authorities prevented relatives of victims of enforced disappearance
from holding public protests in front of the National Advisory Commission for the
Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (CNCPPDH) without giving an official reason,
and police used violence to disperse protesters who sought to defy the ban.
Journalists and human rights defenders faced defamation or other criminal charges
apparently for criticizing state officials or institutions, or alleging corruption.
Belhamideche Belkacem, director of the daily Réflexion, and two other men were sentenced to six months’ imprisonment on 13 May after being
convicted of defaming the Mayor of Ain-Boudinar in an article about alleged corruption
published in the newspaper in June 2009. All three remained at liberty awaiting the
outcome of an appeal.
Anti-corruption activist and journalist Djilali Hadjadj was arrested on 5 September
at Constantine airport on the basis that he had previously been convicted in his absence
of forgery. He was retried on 13 September in Algiers. He was convicted and sentenced
to a suspended six-month prison term and fined, then released.
Officers of the Department of Information and Security (DRS), military intelligence,
continued to arrest security suspects and detain them incommunicado, in some cases
for more than the 12 days permitted by law, at unrecognized detention centres where
they were at risk of torture or other ill-treatment. Impunity for torturing or otherwise
abusing security suspects remained entrenched.
Salah Koulal was arrested on 5 September in Baghtiya, Boumerdès province, by plain-clothed
security officers and detained for 13 days in an unrecognized detention centre in
Blida. He remained in El Harrach prison at the end of the year, awaiting trial on
a charge of being an “apologist” for terrorism-related activities.
Mustapha Labsi was detained for 12 days by the DRS after he was forcibly returned
to Algeria from Slovakia on 19 April. He was then transferred to El Harrach prison.
At the end of 2010, he was awaiting trial on charges of belonging to a “terrorist
group abroad”.
In April, security suspects held in El Harrach prison went on hunger strike to protest
against alleged ill-treatment by guards who, they said, had insulted, slapped and
humiliated them. No official investigation into their allegations was held.
Suspects in terrorism-related cases faced unfair trials. Some were convicted on the
basis of “confessions” that they alleged were extracted under torture or other duress,
including some who were sentenced to death by military courts. Some were denied access
to lawyers of their choice. Other security suspects were detained without trial.
The trial of Malik Medjnoun and Abdelhakim Chenoui had not resumed by the end of 2010.
Accused of murdering famous Kabyle singer Lounès Matoub, and of terrorism-related
offences, they have spent over 10 years in detention without trial. Both were tortured
during prolonged incommunicado detention following their arrest in 1999.
Hasan Zumiri and Adil Hadi Bin Hamlili were transferred to Algeria from US custody
in Guantánamo Bay in January; Abdelaziz Naji was transferred in July. All three remained
at liberty while investigations continued to determine whether they would face charges
of belonging to a “terrorist group abroad”. Two former Guantánamo detainees, Mustafa
Ahmed Hamlily and Abdul Rahman Houari, were acquitted of similar charges in February
and November, respectively. Another former Guantánamo detainee, Bachir Ghalaab, was
sentenced to a suspended prison term.
In November, the UN Special Rapporteur on violence against women visited Algeria.
Despite efforts to implement a national strategy to combat violence against women,
the authorities had yet to criminalize domestic violence, including marital rape,
and individuals responsible for gender-based violence were not brought to justice.
In March and April, a series of attacks targeting women living alone took place in
the “36 dwellings” and “40 dwellings” areas in the town of Hassi Messaoud. Groups
of men forcibly entered the women’s homes, and robbed and physically assaulted them.
Some women were also sexually abused. Complaints led to tighter security around the
targeted areas, but did not result in prosecutions of alleged perpetrators.
No steps were taken to investigate the thousands of enforced disappearances and other
serious abuses that took place during the internal conflict in the 1990s. The authorities
continued to implement the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation (Law 06-01),
which gave impunity to the security forces, criminalized public criticism of their
conduct and amnestied members of armed groups responsible for gross human rights abuses.
In October, a senior official claimed that 7,500 “repented terrorists” had been granted
amnesties since 2005. He also said that 6,240 families of people who had disappeared
had accepted financial compensation, and that only 12 families “manipulated by NGOs
and foreign bodies” were refusing compensation. Under Law 06-01, relatives can seek
compensation if they obtain a death certificate from the authorities for the person
who disappeared.
Families of the disappeared continued to hold protests in several cities, including
Algiers, Constantine and Jijel. The head of the CNCPPDH declared in August that demands
by families for truth and justice were unrealistic due to the absence of testimonies
and the impossibility of identifying perpetrators.
In July, the UN Human Rights Committee said that the authorities should investigate
the disappearance of Douia Benaziza, who was arrested by security forces in June 1996,
and provide her family with an adequate remedy. The Committee found that the authorities
had breached her right to liberty and security of person, and her right not to be
tortured or ill-treated.
Amid a continuing crackdown on Protestant churches, Christians, including converts,
faced judicial proceedings for “practising religious rites without authorization”
under Ordinance 06-03 regulating religious faiths other than Islam. The Constitution
guarantees freedom of religion but makes Islam the state religion.
A Protestant church in Tizi Ouzou was pillaged in January; the authorities failed
to investigate.
In August, the trial began in the town of Al-Arba’a Nath Irathen of Mahmoud Yahou,
who had established a Protestant church earlier in the year in Tizi Ouzou province,
and three other converts to Christianity. They were accused of breaching Ordinance
06-03. The church was not registered apparently as a result of the authorities’ refusal
to establish any new Protestant churches. In December, the four men were sentenced
to suspended prison terms and fined.
Individuals were prosecuted for breaking fast during the holy month of Ramadan under
Article 144 bis 2 of the Penal Code. Courts were not consistent in their sentencing,
in some cases dropping the charge and in others imposing prison terms and fines.
On 5 October, a court in Ain El-Hammam cleared two Christian converts, Hocine Hocini
and Salem Fellak, of all charges. They were prosecuted for eating during daylight
hours in Ramadan.
Algeria co-sponsored the UN General Assembly resolution calling for a moratorium on
the death penalty, and maintained a de facto moratorium on executions that has been
in force since 1993. Nonetheless, more than 130 people were sentenced to death, many
in their absence, mostly for terrorism-related offences.
Thousands of Algerians and sub-Saharan Africans continued to attempt to migrate to
Europe from Algeria, undeterred by amendments to the Penal Code introduced in 2009
that criminalized “irregular exit” from Algeria. Some perished in the desert or at
sea; some were intercepted by border control authorities.
According to police statistics, 34 foreign nationals were expelled while 5,232 were
deported from Algeria between January and June. Law 08-11, which regulates the entry,
stay and movement of foreigners in Algeria, allows provincial governors to order deportations
of individuals who have entered or remain in Algerian territory “illegally”, without
guaranteeing their right to appeal.
In May, the UN Committee on Migrant Workers expressed concern that Algerian legislation
allows for the indefinite detention of irregular migrants and that the authorities
had failed to investigate reports of collective expulsions.
Amnesty International’s request to conduct a fact-finding visit to the country was
not granted. The authorities said that the organization could only visit the Sahrawi
refugee camps in Tindouf, run by the Polisario Front, but not the remainder of the
country.
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