NGO alerts UN on forced disappearance of Algerian Hirak activist
Geneva-based non-governmental organization, Alkarama, has addressed a correspondence to the United Nations Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, requesting its intervention with the Algerian authorities regarding the young activist Abdelhamid Bouziza, who forcibly disappeared since October 19.
Abdelhamid Bouziza, 25 is a peaceful movement activist and social media blogger who had expressed concern about issues related to political detainees in Algeria and defended them through social media, the NGO said in a statement.
The case dates back to 19 October when members of the Brigade of Research and Investigation and the National Gendarmerie stormed the house of the young activist in the Saf Saf neighborhood in Tlemcen (Northwest), arrested him and then took him to an unknown destination, Alkarama added.
According to his family, his brother went to look for him at the State Security Center in Tlemcen, but was informed that his brother was transferred to the capital the following day, October 20, 2022.
The lawyers, who went to inquire about him at the court of Tlemcen and in the courts of the capital, found no trace or file concerning him, said the NGO, noting that to date, there is no information on the fate of Abdelhamid Bouziza and his place of detention.
His family has received no news from him, Alkarama said, recalling the “seriousness of the phenomenon of enforced disappearances which constitute, according to international law, a crime against humanity.”
Alkarama also expressed “its deep concern about the repetition by the country’s current political system of the experience of enforced disappearances in the 1990s, which resulted in the enforced disappearance of ten to twenty thousand victims.”
It noted that the UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances has received more than three thousand cases of disappearance, and that for ten years, the Working Group has been calling on the Algerian government to allow visits to the country.
However, the NGO said, despite numerous approvals, no visits have taken place so far, demonstrating “the lack of cooperation of the current regime with international mechanisms.”
Also, Alkarama reported lately that the UN mechanisms have concluded that the Algerian state is responsible for the forced disappearance of Boubekeur Fergani, calling for a transparent investigation to shed light on his disappearance.
“During its 135th session, which took place in Geneva from 27 June to 27 July 2022, the United Nations Human Rights Committee concluded that the Algerian state was responsible for the enforced disappearance of Boubekeur Fergani in the 1990s,” said the NGO in a statement.
The victim is among the thousands of Algerians abducted between 1992-1998 by the police and military in Algeria and whose families have remained without news to this day.
“Despite the many recommendations made by the Committee regarding these disappearances, the authorities still refuse to shed light on the circumstances of these crimes and to bring their perpetrators to justice, taking advantage of the provisions of the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which establishes widespread impunity for the benefit of their perpetrators,” the NGO deplores.
In its decision rendered during the 135th session, the Committee recalled that the State cannot invoke the Charter for Reconciliation, which is considered incompatible with the provisions of the Covenant since it establishes widespread impunity for members of the police and the army, perpetrators of serious crimes.
The UN body urged the Algerian authorities to “conduct a prompt, effective, thorough, independent, impartial and transparent investigation into the disappearance of Boubekeur Fergani”, calling for his release if he is still being held incommunicado, to return his remains to his family in the event of his death and to prosecute those responsible for the violations committed, while providing the family with adequate compensation, AlKarama said.
