In a black report, the FIDH and OMCT publish a joint report on the repression of human rights defenders in Algeria

PERSISMA, Rabat – The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and the World Organization against Torture (OMCT) jointly published on 07 May 2020, a black report on the repression of human rights defenders in Algeria, entitled “Algeria: Zoom on the Hirak”, listing the situations of some human rights defenders harassed by Algerian authorities.

The Observatory of these institutions for the protection of human rights defenders, establishes a chronology of the attacks against human rights activists in Algeria between 22 February 2019 and 05 May 2020, “more than a year after the beginning of the popular movement of Hirak and in full world pandemic of Covid-19, which strikes hard of Algeria.

Although the leaders of the Hirak movement, who continue to peacefully demand the advent of a democratic Algeria, have suspended the demonstrations since 15 March 2020 because of the COVID-19 pandemic, and that the whole country has been placed under confinement since 04 April 2020, according to FIDH, the Algerian authorities are using this pandemic to carry out forced the arrests, arbitrary detentions and ill-treatment of peaceful activists.

If there are no official figures of arrests or detentions, the National Committee for the release of detainees (CNLD) estimated at the end of March 2020, the number of Hirak detainees up at 1,200, including a large number of women. Despite protesters deciding to suspend their weekly gatherings since the start of the public health crisis, repression of regime opponents has persisted, who made the Security forces have targeted young bloggers, independent journalists, online media and activists from the “Hirak” protest movement.

Despite this systematic repression by the Algerian authorities and arbitrary arrests, the members of the unprecedented, leaderless and diverse movement had vowed to continue their mass demonstrations “until they’re all gone!”.