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In January, several hundreds in the southern city of
Laghouat demonstrated against unemployment. Authorities
responded again by arresting dozens of protesters, and
subsequently activists protesting the arrests. Several
protesters including Mohamed Ragog, Belkacem Khencha and
other members of the National Committee for the Defense of
the Unemployed Rights (CNDDC) were charged with
participating in the "unarmed assembly". They were sentenced
to 1-2 years in prison. In March, a court in Oued sentenced
5 peaceful protesters up to 4 months in prison. At the end
of the year they were still on the loose, awaiting a ruling
in the case from the Algerian national court. In October, a
Tamanrasset court sentenced 7 protesters to 1 year in
prison. 6 others appealed their verdict.
According to
Countryaah,
authorities maintained the ban on any kind of
demonstrations. In February, all protesters were arrested as
they arrived at an anti-fracking demonstration and were
detained by police for hours. In June 2015, the police
staged a demonstration called by SOS Disparus, called in
protest against the failure to resolve the many
disappearances of the 1990s. Many journalists were sentenced
to prison sentences and/or fines during the year for
violating the Prophet, written about President Bouteflika's
health or "violated" public institutions. Many clashes
between security forces and armed groups were reported
during the year. Security forces announced that 109 alleged
members of militant groups had been killed during the year,
but gave no details. AQIM claimed to have carried out an
attack in July in the northern province of Ain Defla, which
allegedly cost 14 soldiers life. Authorities continue to
hamper international monitoring of the human rights
situation in the country. This was especially true of the
experts who worked on investigating torture,
In January 2016, Bouteflika closed down the Ministry of
Information and Security (DRS). It was the country's most
important intelligence system until then, but at the same
time had a long tradition of torture and mistreatment of
prisoners. Instead, the Security Service Directorate was
created, referring directly to the President.
As part of constitutional amendments, a new National
Human Rights Council was established in February. However,
Algeria continued its policy of preventing missions from
international human rights organizations, as well as the UN
visiting and conducting investigations in the country. Human
rights continued to be violated and during the year,
security forces killed 125 members of rebel groups or the
opposition by clashes around the country. The constitutional
amendments in February extended academic and freedom of
speech, but the constitution makes the rights dependent on
existing legislation, which continues to drastically
restrict these rights.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon visited Sahrawi refugee
camps in Algeria in March and took the opportunity to
designate Western Sahara as occupied by Morocco.
The May 2017 parliamentary election was a staggering
defeat for the ruling FLN, going 44 seats back to 164, while
the RND went down 29 seats to 100. After the election,
President Bouteflika appointed bdelmadjid Tebboune to new
prime minister. However, he only managed to get 3 months on
the record. Already in August, Bouteflika replaced him with
RND leader Ahmed Ouyahia.
Denmark is actively supporting the suppression of human
rights in Algeria. In 2016-17, Dagbladet Information could
reveal that the Danish Ministry of Business had granted
export authorization for advanced monitoring equipment from
the Nørresundby company BAE Systems Applied Intelligence.
The permit was for exports to the dictatorial states of
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, UAE, Morocco and Algeria. The
advanced electronic equipment was used to monitor and
persecute journalists, human rights activists and
oppositionists. Even before the Arab Spring of 2011, BAE's
predecessor, ETI, had provided monitoring equipment to the
Ben Ali dictatorship in Tunisia.
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