29 June 2021
On June 12, the parliamentary elections were held in Algeria, with the aim of definitively turning the page on Bouteflika. In 2019, the president, who has been in office since 1999, proposed his candidacy once again for the presidential elections, provoking a strong wave of protests that led him to resign that same year. These protests, referred to as the Hirak (Desrues & Gobe, 2019), are the symbol of a youth in revolt against a corrupt political power that greedily holds on to power by ruling out alternation. For two years, gray-haired authorities have faced off against protesters drawn from a population that is much younger, hungry for opportunity, and less accepting of Algeria’s longstanding isolation. These events are reminiscent of the Arab Spring, which is not necessarily as devastating as in other Middle Eastern countries. This parliamentary vote follows a constitutional referendum in November 2020, which itself follows the Hirak uprisings.
This referendum provided for, among other things, the installation of a prime minister from the parliamentary majority and the inclusion of the Hirak in the preamble to the Constitution, as well as the reinforcement of certain fundamental freedoms, notably of expression. It was neither more nor less than a maneuver of Tebboune, Bouteflika’s successor, to ensure an executive credibility in this context that is unfavorable to him. This is the same function to which the parliamentary elections of June 12, Tebboune hoping to break through in the ballot box and finally assert its legitimacy to power. Both Tebboune’s election in December 2019 and a constitutional referendum last November appeared to deliver the results he and his sponsors in the country’s powerful security forces sought (Farrand, 2021). High levels of abstention and protest, however, highlighted a wide gulf separating Algerians from their leaders: fewer than one in seven eligible voters voted for the constitution, which passed nonetheless (APS, 2020).
This democratic weakness attests to a flaw in the Algerian political system, which leaves little room for political participation and freedom of expression in the streets. This deleterious dynamic is coupled with an ever more secure vision of public action led by the post-Bouteflika regime instead of proposing clear political alternatives that the Algerian people want. Under the pretext of the new constitution, in February, Tebboune dissolved the National Popular Assembly (APN), the lower house of Algeria’s parliament, ending deputies’ normal five-year mandates a year early (Ahmed, 2021). The move fit with authorities’ campaign of pseudo-reforms designed to placate discontented citizens and undercut calls for more fundamental change. This dissolution, which raises the hope of a parliamentary political alternation, is however illusory, since the latest constitutional reform does not abolish the glass wall separating the legislative from the executive. In other words, the regime’s hyper-presidentiality remains intact, even though it is a major demand of the Hirak, and greatly reduces the scope for such elections. This article will offer a brief analysis of the Hirak movement initiated in 2019 and its involvement in the Algerian political system before looking at the regime’s human rights violations.
The Hirak movement
The Algerian regime’s decision to propose a new term for Bouteflika provided the initial spark for the Hirak (Volpi, 2020). People were fed up with the economic situation in their country and this move of the regime to keep ill and old Bouteflika in office was understood by the public that no changes would be made to the current status quo (Serres, 2019). The Hirak began with an uncoordinated wave of protests in the second half of February: On the 1stMarch, an estimated three million protestors marched in the streets (Ouali, 2019). The Hirak movement is also tainted by the specter of the Islamization of the movement. In general, the largest Hirak protests have taken place on Fridays after prayer, although there have also been smaller but well-organized events on Tuesdays led by student organizations. The choice of Fridays indicates that Hirak organizers are seeking the support of mosque goers, a strategic decision that reflects both the involvement of activists with Islamist leanings and the acceptance of these activists by their more secularized counterparts (Volpi, ibid). It is important to understand here the significance of the civil war in the memory of Algerians, the black decade continuing to agitate the threat of the return of cruel actions under the cover of religion. However, here, the demonstrators are no longer frightened by this image of Islamism, claiming more their precarious social position that takes over.
Once Bouteflika stepped down, an interim government was installed under Abelkader Bensalah, former president of the upper house. The demonstrators have new claims and now called for the resignation of the provisional government and for new procedures that would prevent the authorities from engaging in electoral manipulation (ibid). It is easy to understand here that what the demonstrators wanted to avoid was precisely the configuration in which we find ourselves today, namely a government that is trying to gain social peace and legitimacy through an election that will not cost it much. The presidential elections that followed in December were not enough to quell the protests, and candidates with the reformist label multiplied, an opportunity seized by politicians who had no relations with the controversial figures of the previous regime. Nevertheless, the elections took place and Abdelmadjid Tebboune, former prime minister under Bouteflika, won the race (Akef, 2019). Protestors managed to keep the demonstrations alive for an entire year and gather in large numbers. They pressured several key governmental figures to resign, provoked the government into action, and attracted the attention of the army for negotiations. However, real changes in the system did not take place (Šorm, 2020).
The Hirak protests, which were both peaceful and sustained without the involvement of political parties, were the largest wave of antiregime expression that the country had witnessed since the 1992 coup. Hence Algeria’s rulers defaulted to a mainly political response. The response of the authorities to the protests was more in the security field. The army and the security services, which are interconnected and controlled by the head of the state, played a major role in containing the riots described above (Chena, 2011; Lahcen, 2013; Volpi, 2013; Zeraoui, 2012). Algeria boasts one of the most numerous security forces in the region with a massive budget thanks to the revenues from oil. According to the World Bank database, the Algerian army disposed of over 317,000 armed military personnel in 2011. Scholars tend to agree on 130,000 –150,000 active military personnel and around 150,000 reservists, even though there exist estimates of 300,000 active soldiers (Lahcen, 2013). The number of gendarmes has also quadrupled under Bouteflika’s regime. For some researchers, it was the expertise of the Algerian police forces and their speed of access to the sites of demonstrations that made it possible to contain the revolt. In addition, all of these procedures resulted in arrests, injuries, and low count of deaths, hence according to some, not providing the uprising with martyrs (ibid). Obviously, the repression of the demonstrations contributed to the slowing down of the Hirak and its containment. However, this must be put into perspective, especially since these self-immolations are not a new phenomenon, if we recall that it is precisely one of these dramas that was at the origin of the Arab Spring.
Abusive arrests and violations of fundamental rights
The regime of Algeria’s new president, whose main supporter in the army died early, faces new challenges, including the need for the country’s new political and military leaders to establish their authority within the state administration and security apparatus. And the more they choose to prioritize internal stability for the regime, the more likely they are to opt for a repression of the Hirak. Since Tebboune came to power in the 2019 elections, the Algerian regime has been guilty of human rights violations against participants in the Hirak protest movement, as reported by the NGOs Amnesty International and Human Right Watch, whose facts and figures will be repeated in this section.
First of all, it is the freedom of assembly that is violated. Hundreds of Hirak protesters were arrested throughout the country during protests that occurred in early 2020. While a majority were released the same day, some were tried and sentenced to prison sentences on charges of “illegal gathering,” “harming national unity,” or “demoralizing the army” (HRW, 2020). From June to September, many people were incarcerated and sentenced on the grounds of “participating in a non-armed gathering,” “offending the president of the republic,” “harming national unity,” and “denigrating Islam” (ibid). In August and September, after the reduction of lockdown, the police brutally dispersed protesters to resume demonstrations. It should be noted that the pardon granted by President Tabboune to some 5,000 prisoners to free the prisons during the pandemic has not concerned the members of the Hirak. However, the latter were only guilty of demonstrating in the street, and preventing this constitutes a serious infringement of the freedom of assembly and demonstration, which is a shame for a country claiming to be democratic.
Freedom of expression is also in danger in Algeria. On March 24, an appeals court in Algiers sentenced prominent politician and Hirak supporter, Karim Tabbou, to one year in prison. The national coordinator of the unrecognized Democratic and Socialist Union party, Tabbou was charged with “harming national defense,” “harming national unity” and “undermining the morale of the army,” because of peaceful comments he posted on social media (ibid). The examples are numerous, but each time the accusation is to incite the weakening of the country through peaceful texts. On April 22, the parliament unanimously passed a reform of the penal code, including new laws criminalizing fake news and hate speech. Some offenses, such as “harming public security and the public order” and “harming the stability of State institutions,” which carry sentences of up to three and seven years in prison, respectively, are so vaguely worded that they can be used to criminalize peaceful criticism (ibid). These serious acceptances constitute an attack on the freedom of expression, which is once again paramount in a modern democracy. Especially since these incriminating criteria are subject to a broad subjective factor that can widen the scope of application, and thus further endanger the participants in the Hirak.
On the eve of the last national parliamentary elections, the repression was once again in full swing. This resulted in the arrest of dozens of people for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and assembly in the months leading up to the parliamentary elections on 12 June, Amnesty International said in a statement on 24 June. The organization documented 37 cases of activists who were unfairly detained for participating in demonstrations or expressing dissenting views between March 26 and May 26. As of June 23, at least 273 activists were being unfairly detained, according to local organizations and human rights activists. The government is said to have organized mass arrests of Hirak participants “on trumped-up charges, solely because they participated in demonstrations or expressed dissenting political views” (Amnesty International, 2021). More and more, and this since April 2021, the Algerian authorities label the demonstrators as terrorists in order to make them “arrestable”. They have also qualified two opposition movements as terrorists: the opposition movement Rachad and the Movement for the self-determination of Kabylia. On June 8, authorities adopted amendments to the Penal Code that broadened the definition of terrorism to include working for or inciting “access to power or changing the system of governance by unconstitutional means (ibid). This broad definition can only lead to abuses in terms of imprisonment of people arbitrarily labelled as terrorists. This is Haftar’s strategy to legitimize his authoritarian and military power over eastern Libya, and it seems questionable that a so-called democratic regime would be inspired by it. The Algerian Ministry of the Interior also took steps to dissolve civil society organizations and political parties. In April and May, it sought to suspend or dissolve two political parties, the Union for Change and Progress (UCP) and the Socialist Workers Party (PST), and to dissolve the civil society organization Rassemblement Actions Jeunesse (RAJ) (ibid). The Algerian government is therefore organizing a repression of its people, even though they are only exercising their right to speak and demonstrate, a fundamental right in a democracy. The recent legislative arrangements tend to show that the situation is not likely to improve and that the government will continue to repress its people.
That is why, in this context, it seems urgent to act. Thus, the following recommendations are formulated to try to stop this repressive dynamic:
– The Algerian government must release the political prisoners as soon as possible (even if it does not recognize them as such). These people are arbitrarily detained and their only crime is to disagree with the regime, which is an unacceptable violation of human rights. These cases should not be used as a precedent, at the risk of seeing this type of practice become entrenched.
– The international community must also make it clear in its relations with the country that this situation is unacceptable. Its partners must adopt binding diplomatic measures, without necessarily going as far as sanctions. The countries, especially the members of the European Union, must make their rigor felt on certain values, such as the defense of democracy, in order to assert them in their negotiations.
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By Alvaro Perez Cardenes, The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
