Algeria: Military Junta takes revenge on Amira Bouraoui’s family, Tunisian Visitors

Irked by the humiliating defection of political activist and journalist Amira Bouraoui to France via Tunisia, the Algerian military junta takes revenge on the militant’s family and innocent Tunisian travelers caught up inside the Algerian territory.

Mrs. Bouraoui, a 46 year-old French-Algerian national, is one of the Hirak movement activists. A doctor by training, she was banned from leaving Algeria pending an appeal trial but was not in detention.

She managed to escape to Tunisia, seeking to go to France but she was arrested at an airport and stood before a judge who acquitted her of any wrongdoing. However, Algerian secret police tried to kidnap her in Tunisia, had it not been for a direct intervention of French consular services who offered her protection citing her dual French nationality, sparing her persecution at the hands of the military regime.

Tunisian media speak of pressure on Kais Said in person by France to let Bouraoui travel to France.

Irked by their failure to arrest the activist, Algeria responded hysterically as usual recalling its ambassador to Paris and using its official state news agency to issue threats of an upcoming severance of ties with France.

Part of their hysterical response, Algerian authorities arrested over this weekend her mother and sister in Algiers and searched their home. Her sister was released after spending one day in detention, while her mother, Khadidja Bouaroui, 71, remains in custody.

According to National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD) and the news website Radio M, a cousin of the Bouraoui’s family was also arrested in Annaba.

In retaliation against Kais Said’s Tunisia, the Algerian authorities are also harassing Tunisian travelers and tension is building up at the borders. Several Tunisian travelers remain stranded at the Babouch-Ain Darahim crossing point where the Algerian customs are blocking Tunisian cars carrying goods and foodstuffs from crossing. The drivers and their passengers are forced to unload all purchases: food, clothes, gifts, shoes…before leaving the country.

The painful and appalling scenes show that the vindictiveness and untrustworthiness of the ruling Algerian military regime which takes often innocent people hostage for geopolitical reasons.

On 18 December 1975, the Algerian authorities expelled over 45,000 Moroccan families, including women, children and the elderly who were legally residing in the country. They were stripped of all their belongings before the arbitrary expulsion and forced displacement that took place during Eid Al Adha. Large numbers of them participated in the Algerian war of independence during which hundreds of Moroccans sacrificed their life for the liberation of the neighboring country.

Instead of rewarding them for the sacrifice and services rendered, the feckless and despotic Algerian regime turn them scapegoats!