Articles for Algeria

While Morocco has announced its intention to ratify the Convention for the Protection of All Persons against Enforced Disappearance before the end of 2009, no such move has been announced by the Algerian authorities.
Alkarama sent an urgent appeal to the Special Rapporteur on Follow-up of Views of the Human Rights Committee, asking them to put pressure on the Algerian authorities to try Medjnoun Malik. Accused of complicity in the assassination of singer Lounes Matoub, he claims he is innocent and has been waiting 10 years to be tried. He has been on a hunger strike since 31 January 2009.

Malik Medjnoun has been detained without trial for almost ten (10) years.

The Human Rights Council has just published the report submitted by Alkarama on 5 November 2008 in follow up to its recommendations regarding Algeria on its website. The examination will take place during the next session of the Committee.

Meanwhile the Algerian government's comments on the Committee's concluding observations, presented on 7 November 2007, have been published.

Malik Medjnoun, accused of complicity in the assassination of singer Lounes Matoub, has been detained without trial for nearly 10 years. To protest against this situation, Mr. Malik Medjnoun decided to start a hunger strike, beginning29 January 2009.
Alkarama submitted on 12 January 2009 an individual communication to the Committee against torture asking it to examine the case of Mounir Hammouche, arrested by members of the intelligence services (DRS) on 23 December 2006, detained incommunicado and deceased due to torture a few days later.

Alkarama had already seized on 18 January 2007 this same case to the UN Special Rapporteurs on extra-judicial executions; on torture; and on the promotion and prote

Alkarama submitted on 6 January 2009 a letter to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances and to the Special Rapporteur on Torture to confirm Mr Adel Saker's arrest by agents of the state, and to ask them to urgently contact the Algerian authorities.

Alkarama had contacted these two UN organs on 30 June 2008, a few weeks after Mr Saker was summoned on 26 May 2008 to appear at the headquarters of the Security Services of the District of Tamalous (Wilaya (canton) of Skikda), to which he responded.

As announced following our meeting in November 2008 with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Alkarama submitted a list of 175 cases of enforced disappearances which took place during the period from 1993 to 1996 in the Jijel region (300 km to the east of Algiers) to the Working Group.

These cases were documented by the Association for the families of the disappeared of the Jijel region, represented by Mr Moussa Bourefis, hims

On 28 November 2008, Moussa Bourefis, the son and brother of two persons disappeared in Algeria, met with the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances at Palais Wilson in Geneva, alongside representatives from Alkarama and Algeria Watch.

Moussa Bourefis, a member of the organising committee of the Association of Families of the Disappeared in Jijel, informed the Working Group of some of the specifics of the issue of enforced disappearance in the Jijel region.

At the end of the examination of Algeria’s third periodic report during the 91st session of the United Nations Human Rights Committee held in Geneva from 15 October to 2 November 2007, the Committee asked the Algerian authorities to provide information in connection with some of its recommendations within one year.

Within the framework of its activities regarding the follow-up of the concluding observations of the Human Rights Committee, Alkarama has made a submission to the UN body in order to draw its attention to the shortcomings and failures of

Alkarama wrote on June 30, 2008 a communication to the Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances (WGEID) and the Special Rapporteur on Torture to ask them to intervene urgently with the Algerian authorities in the case of Mr. Adel Saker, a victim of enforced disappearance since May 26, 2008.

Mr. Saker Adel, born on January 28, 1977, had already been arrested in 1994 when he was a minor and held for three years before being released.