Human Rights Watch (HRW), Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) and EuroMed Rights have reported the detention of at least four people for more than four months in Algeria.
Development Diaries reports that they were arrested for allegedly helping an activist to leave the country in February 2023.
It is understood that the activist, Amira Bouraoui, who was convicted for her peaceful activism and was subjected to an arbitrary travel ban in 2021, fled across the Tunisian border.
Investigation into Bouraoui’s departure resulted in the arrest of five people, including a journalist, Mustapha Bendjama.
‘Algerian authorities are not only punishing anyone they suspect of aiding Amira Bouraoui to leave the country to escape political persecution, they have used the case to expand their repression’, Deputy Middle East and North Africa Director at HRW, Eric Goldstein, said.
Those arrested for allegedly participating in Bouraoui’s departure include her mother, Khadidja Bouraoui, 71; Amira’s cousin, Yacine Bentayeb; the taxi driver who drove Bouraoui from Annaba to Tunis, Djamel Miassi; Bendjama, and a police border officer whose name has not been disclosed.
Human rights in Algeria have over the years faced major threats like restrictions on the right to freedom of association, assembly, and movement, state censorship of the press and freedom of expression.
There has also been widespread corruption, official impunity, excessive reliance on pretrial detention, poor prison conditions, inmate abuse, a lack of a free judiciary, violence and discrimination against women, restricted worker rights, and arbitrary killings by government agents.
Algeria is rated ‘not free’ in Freedom House’s Freedom in the World 2023 annual study of political rights and civil liberties worldwide.
Development Diaries calls on the Algerian government to adhere to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights which it ratified in 1989, and ensure the release of those detained unlawfully.
Source: HRW
Photo source: Getty Images
