EuroMed Rights calls on the Algerian authorities to ensure that national legislation complies with the provisions of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights in order to guarantee freedom of expression, association and assembly in Algeria, as provided for by the country’s constitution, amended in February 2016.
On Sunday November 27th 2016, a demonstration organised by the trade union federation – bringing together different independent trade unions – notably from the public sector – was fettered by a strong police presence.
The demonstrators wanted to gather in front of the National People’s Assembly (APN) in order to demand the withdrawal of the retirement bill which, according to the independent trade unions, calls into question many of the rights acquired by civil servants. The Main Square, where the demonstrators were due to meet, was patrolled by the police force and all the accesses were blocked off in order to prevent other demonstrators from joining the gathering. The first activists to arrive at the venue – including Idir Achour, the secretary-general of the CLA, one of the organisers of the demonstration – were arrested as soon as they arrived at the Main Square at about 10 o’clock. According to his testimony, Idir Achour was held at the police station on rue Caivaignac with around one hundred other demonstrators that the police then dispatched to several other police stations outside Algiers. All of the people who were arrested were released in the afternoon. No legal proceedings have been noted as of today’s date.
The demonstrators who tried to travel to Algiers by car or public transport were prevented from reaching the city center. Mourad Nekache, the chairman of SNAP, states that his car was blocked by the police blockades which had been set up very early in the morning at the entrances to Algiers. The police also blocked off the railway and bus stations.
The right to assembly is regularly violated in Algeria by the often violent dispersal of demonstrations by the forces of order. A peaceful demonstration by SOS Disappeared in front of the APN was repressed on September 29th, 2016 and old women, who were the mothers of disappeared persons, were arrested by the police. On February 6th, 2016, a conference on the socio-economic situation in Algeria, despite being organised in the premises of the National Independent Union of Public Administration Personnel (SNAPAP) was also banned.
EuroMed Rights exhorts the authorities to repeal the decree of June 18th, 2001 which forbids all forms of public demonstration in Algiers and to establish a system of simple notification for public demonstrations – instead of the system of prior authorisation. This has already been recommended by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression.