Algerian regime kidnaps political opponent Fethi Ghares

After silencing dissent, sending scores of political opponents to jail or forcing them into exile, the Algerian regime has stepped up its crackdown with the kidnapping of opposition figure and leader of Algeria’s communist party MDS Fethi Ghares.

Ghares’ wife, Messaouda Chaballah, said that agents in plainclothes took him from his home, and that his whereabouts remain unknown.

Ghares and his MDS party are outspoken critics of the military regime in Algeria.

The Algerian politician’s wife, a party activist, denounced the “mafia” methods used by the Algerian regime that is reproducing the same bloody tactics of the black decade.

She also recalled that the head of the Algerian police is Abdelkader Haddad, alias Nacer El Djen, notorious for his assassinations during the civil war of the 1990s.

Ghares is believed to be arrested for his loyalty to the pro-democracy Hirak protests of 2019 which demanded a clean break with the military junta in favor of a civilian-led government.

The kidnapping took place as President Tebboune seeks a second term in an electoral campaign marred by large-scale indifference.

Ghares is the latest episode in a crackdown on opponents that has also affected many leaders of the RCD opposition party, who urged a boycott of the sham elections.

The Algerian regime is still thumbling at any call that would re-ignite calls for democracy following the example of the 2019 Hirak that prevented Bouteflika from a fifth term.

Last month, Karim Tabbou, another opposition leader, was forced to house arrest and banned from practicing in any political activity.

“Never in Algeria has a presidential election campaign been marred by such implacable repression or a flood of arrests,” Mohcine Belabbas, former president of the RCD said, adding that his country is currently experiencing an unprecedented “climate of terror”.