On 15 April 2026, Alkarama submitted its annual contribution to the UN Secretary-General's report on intimidation and reprisals against persons cooperating with United Nations human rights mechanisms. Every year, pursuant to Human Rights Council Resolution 12/2, the United Nations Secretary-General (UNSG) presents a report to the Human Rights Council (HRC) documenting cases of intimidation and reprisal against individuals who have cooperated with United Nations human rights mechanisms. This report serves as the primary accountability record within the UN system for such violations. Alkarama has contributed annually to this report since the inception of this mechanism, by submitting documented individual cases of reprisals, as well as trend analyses of such practices in the Arab world.
This year’s submission is particularly significant. For the second time, Alkarama has submitted its own case as a target of reprisal, documenting how the French Ministry of Interior has used false allegations issued by countries such as Algeria and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to issue an administrative entry ban against one of its co-founders, Prof. Abbas AROUA. The submission also includes two new cases from Morocco, a follow-up on a long-running case from the UAE, and an analysis of two concerning phenomena: citizenship-stripping as a form of reprisal against human rights defenders, and the increased use of international counter-terrorism cooperation to facilitate the transnational repression of activists.
“When a democratic State knowingly relies on false intelligence from authoritarian governments to ban a human rights defender from its territory, it is not merely failing to protect him, said Rachid MESLI, Director of Alkarama. By doing so, it is actively enforcing the reprisal on the authoritarian State's behalf”
THE CASE OF PROF. ABBAS AROUA AND ALKARAMA
Prof. AROUA is a founding member of Alkarama and a recognised expert in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. A national of Algeria who has resided in Switzerland since the 1980s, he regularly cooperates with Swiss federal authorities on conflict transformation and prevention of violence at the international level through the Cordoba Peace Institute.
On 19 May 2023, while returning from an official mission in Mali conducted with the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Prof. AROUA transited through Paris and was arrested at the airport on the basis of an administrative entry ban issued by the Ministry of the Interior by virtue of France's expansive anti-terrorism law. The ban relied on the allegation that he was affiliated with Alkarama, which the Ministry falsely accused of benefiting from “support from the Muslim Brotherhood”. No evidence was produced other than unsigned, undated, and unsourced intelligence notes, the “white notes”, based on information emanating from foreign security services. The former UN Special Rapporteur on counter-terrorism has explicitly criticised such notes as lacking probative value or adequate procedural safeguards following her visit to France.
Following his arrest, border police initially attempted to return Prof. AROUA to Mali. He explained that he faced a serious and foreseeable risk of onward transfer to Algeria, where he faces documented risks of torture, arbitrary detention, and unfair trial. Only after urgent intervention by the French Red Cross was his return flight redirected to Geneva.
Prof. AROUA and Alkarama challenged the ban before the Paris Administrative Tribunal. The Ministry of the Interior's defence memoranda revealed the full extent of the reprisals: the Ministry explicitly reproached Alkarama for its legal assistance to victims of crimes against humanity in Algeria, and for its legal assistance to victims of arbitrary detention, enforced disappearance, and torture across several Arab countries. Notably, in its memoranda the Ministry of Interior upbraided Alkarama for having brought before UN mechanisms cases of violations of the right to life, liberty, and security of individuals it considered as “Islamists” or members of the “Muslim Brotherhood”. As a reminder, Alkarama has suffered from defamation campaigns and other retaliatory measures from the UAE for having referred to the UN cases of arbitrary detention and torture of opponents and human rights defenders in the UAE, such as the UAE 94, lawyer Al Roken, and human rights defender Ahmed Mansoor. Furthermore, the “white notes” relied on false allegations from Arab states that UN Special Procedures had already identified as retaliatory.
Even more concerning is the use in the memoranda of a disturbingly prejudiced rationale against Prof. AROUA and Alkarama, the Ministry of Interior rejecting evidence produced disproving the “white notes” arguing that in any case their human rights work could only be “insincere” and carried out with a hidden agenda. Such allegations were not grounded in facts but rather in the perception of Prof. AROUA’s and other Alkarama founders' religious beliefs and identity as Muslim men. In a separate submission to the Tribunal, Alkarama recalled that it has defended victims from across the Arab region from all walks of life and all political, ideological, and religious backgrounds, given that non-discrimination stands as a core principle of its mandate and vision.
On 9 April 2026, the Paris Administrative Tribunal annulled the entry ban on the grounds of “factual errors”, noting that sufficient evidence had been adduced to disprove the allegations contained in the white notes. While Alkarama and Prof. AROUA welcomed the decision, concerns remain over the fact that the Tribunal failed to characterise the basis of the entry ban as a form of reprisal under international human rights law and declined to engage with the Special Procedures' communication sent to France in relation to the case.
Alkarama’s submission to the UNSG identified three structural concerns arising from this case: the absence of guarantees of non-repetition; the transnational overreach of reprisal measures against human rights defenders through counter-terrorism cooperation frameworks; and a discriminatory denial of protection adopted by European States against Muslim human rights defenders and political opponents, on the basis of their real or perceived religious beliefs. Alkarama warned that the current international legal framework on counter-terrorism and terrorism prevention carries an embedded prejudice against certain activists, either because they are, or are perceived to be, Muslim, and/or because their human rights work involves documenting, including before UN mechanisms, discriminatory violations against Muslims, particularly those arising in counter-terrorism contexts. This form of discrimination, which the submission characterises as guilt or suspicion by presumed religious identity, constitutes, in the context of cooperation with the United Nations, a particularly insidious form of reprisal.
MR. MOHAMED ATTAOUI, ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDER, MOROCCO
Mr. Mohamed ATTAOUI, a water and forestry technician from the Moroccan Atlas, co-founded a local association in 2006 to preserve the cedar forests threatened by large-scale illegal logging. After publicly denouncing what he called the “cedar mafia” and the authorities' inaction in countering it, he was arrested, charged, imprisoned, and subsequently suspended from his civil service post. After his release in 2012, he continued documenting the environmental destruction and brought the matter to the attention of national authorities.
In 2023, he contacted Alkarama for assistance in petitioning the Special Rapporteur on the human right to a healthy environment. The consequences were swift. Within weeks of the submission being filed, criminal proceedings for alleged defamation were initiated against him. Official hearing records confirm that questioning and investigations focused on his complaint to the UN, including his phone calls with Alkarama’s director on this matter.
What followed was a series of escalating reprisals: a criminal conviction carrying eight months' imprisonment; an administrative suspension extended to definitive dismissal after 32 years of public service, stripping him of his income and family allowances; and the seizure of his personal property to pay court-imposed fines.
MRS. SAIDA EL ALAMI, BLOGGER AND HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDER, MOROCCO
Mrs. Saida EL ALAMI is a Moroccan blogger and human rights defender with a consistent public record of exposing violations of detainees' rights through social media. In March 2022, she had already been sentenced to three years' imprisonment on charges criminalising her legitimate exercise of freedom of expression as a human rights defender. She was released in July 2024 following a royal pardon.
On 1 July 2025, she was abducted in the street by plainclothes police officers shortly after broadcasting a live video denouncing conditions of detention in her country. Her arrest was acknowledged by authorities only the following day. Following her arrest, Alkarama submitted her case to the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), which formally notified the Moroccan government of the submission on 27 November 2025.
On 25 December 2025, just a few weeks after the government was notified of the WGAD procedure, a serious incident of targeted abuse occurred in prison. Mrs. EL ALAMI was explicitly asked by a prison officer whether she had seized a UN mechanism. Upon confirming that she had, she was beaten and spat upon by multiple prison guards in the presence of other detainees, verbally abused, and referred to as a “traitor”. She was subsequently subjected to sustained psychological pressure and harassment. On 13 January 2026, she was transferred to a prison 96 kilometres from her family, further isolating her in retaliation for her engagement with the UN.
FOLLOW-UP: MR. AHMAD ALI MEKKAOUI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES
Mr. Ahmad Ali MEKKAOUI, a Lebanese citizen detained in the UAE for more than 10-years, has been included in the Secretary-General's reports on reprisals since 2019, after Alkarama submitted his case to the procedure. He was sentenced in December 2016 by the UAE's Federal Supreme Court to 15 years in prison on the basis of confessions extracted under torture. In 2017, the WGAD issued an Opinion finding his detention arbitrary.
In its 2020 report, the Secretary-General noted that the UAE denied that Mr. MEKKAOUI had been subjected to arbitrary detention, torture, or solitary confinement. Alkarama now reports that his situation has dramatically deteriorated. He is completely cut off from the outside world: no visits are permitted and he is entirely prohibited from making phone calls. His family fears for his physical and mental health.
In its submission to the UNSG, Alkarama argued that the UAE authorities' evident intent to keep him outside the protection of the law, in violation of the WGAD's Opinion finding his detention arbitrary, constitutes in itself a continuing act of reprisal; and a deterrent signal to all other detainees who might consider referring their cases to UN human rights mechanisms.
IDENTIFIED TRENDS: CITIZENSHIP STRIPPING AS REPRISAL AND DISCRIMINATORY DENIAL OF INTERNATIONAL PROTECTION
Citizenship stripping against human rights defenders: Algeria's alarming amendment to its Nationality Code
In December 2025, both chambers of Algeria's Parliament unanimously adopted a law amending the Nationality Code. Published in February 2026, the amendment introduces a provision allowing for the administrative deprivation of nationality of nationals whom authorities allege have committed acts outside its territory deemed “likely to harm its interests, national unity, state security, or institutional stability”.
The scope of conduct covered closely mirrors Algeria's existing definition of terrorism in Article 87 bis of its Penal Code, a provision already flagged by UN Special Procedures as incompatible with the State's international human rights obligations. Notably, Algeria's Penal Code provides an overly broad formulation of incriminated acts and intents as “terrorism or subversion”, which have in turn been used to criminalise criticism of the country's military institutional takeover; a major popular grievance expressed during the Hirak. UN experts have repeatedly warned the Algerian authorities that Article 87 bis of the Penal Code is not only too vague, in violation of the principle of legal certainty, but that it inevitably criminalises acts protected under the rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association, as well as the right to participate in public affairs.
Crucially, the new law explicitly excludes any judicial or administrative remedy for individuals found to have engaged in activities contrary to the interests, national unity, state security, or institutional stability of the State, depriving affected individuals of all due process guarantees.
Though not yet applied, the law raises an immediate and serious concern: activities such as submitting information to UN mechanisms, engaging with Special Procedures, or documenting human rights violations from abroad could be recharacterized as conduct “harming the interests of the State”. Such a practice exposes Algerian human rights defenders and political opponents abroad to the irreversible sanction of statelessness. In its submission to the UNSG, Alkarama identified this new law as an early warning signal requiring explicit attention in the Secretary-General's report.
When democratic States act as enforcers of authoritarian reprisals in the name of international counter-terrorism cooperation
In its submission to the UNSG, Alkarama highlighted a second, deeply troubling trend which has consolidated over the current reporting period: the increasing role of democratic States in giving effect, on their own territory, to reprisals originating in authoritarian States.
Historically, transnational repression against human rights defenders – including those cooperating with the United Nations – was documented primarily in cooperation between authoritarian States. Alkarama has directly observed, through the case of Prof. AROUA and others, that this practice has spread to cooperation between authoritarian governments and their counterparts in democratic countries, particularly through intelligence sharing. Documented cases show that intelligence generated by authoritarian States, consisting of false allegations of terrorism or "extremism" against human rights defenders and other peaceful activists, is being shared with democratic partners through counter-terrorism and security cooperation frameworks. Several EU member States have uncritically relied upon such intelligence, without prior independent judicial scrutiny, to issue severe administrative measures including entry bans and expulsions, against human rights defenders and whistleblowers.
These practices are often justified as implementation of UN Security Council-mandated counter-terrorism frameworks, lending them an appearance of international legitimacy. In practice, however, they function as transnational multipliers of reprisals against activists who document, from abroad, violations committed in their States of origin. Furthermore, Alkarama highlighted that such administrative decisions are frequently motivated by a discriminatory and prejudiced perception that constructs Muslim activists as inherently suspicious when subjected to counter-terrorism and terrorism prevention frameworks. This over-securitisation of Muslims as “a per se ‘suspect group’” in preventive and counter-terrorism policies has been criticised by UN experts, and places activists perceived as Muslim at greater risk of being denied international protection against refoulement to their country of origin.
“The international counter-terrorism architecture is becoming a transmission belt for reprisals”, said Rachid MESLI. “That authoritarian States generate false allegations to punish those cooperating with UN human rights mechanisms is not news; but that democratic States rely on them uncritically against human rights defenders operating abroad is deeply alarming”.
WHAT'S NEXT?
The Secretary-General's Office, under the leadership of the Assistant Secretary-General for Human Rights, will review the submissions and compile a selection of cases into the annual report, alongside analysis of global trends, good practices, and policy developments within the UN system. These findings will then be presented in the report to the Human Rights Council, creating an international and public record that can be used to support further UN advocacy and assist defenders in domestic legal proceedings.
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