UNICEF in Geneva on Thursday criticized Algeria’s abuse and criminalization of human rights activists, citing a number of instances, including the one involving independent journalist Merzoug Touati.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human right soldiers, said she was “deeply unhappy” to see the situation had not improved since she visited Algeria in late 2023.
” Human rights supporters in various fields of work, some of whom I met, are still being haphazardly arrested, justly harassed, intimidated and criminalised for their peaceful actions under faintly worded measures, such as ‘ harming the security of the state'”, she said in a statement.
Touati’s case raised particular concerns, according to Lawlor, an independent expert appointed by the UN human rights council but who does not speak on behalf of the UN.
The independent journalist and rights advocate “has been… subjected to trials on false charges for years,” she said, adding that it was “uniquely one of the most alarming cases I have recently looked at.”
She claimed that he had been detained three times since the beginning of last year.
During his latest arrest last August, she said, “his family was reportedly subjected to ill-treatment. Then, according to reports, he was allegedly subjected to physical and psychological torture while he was being held by the police for five days.
He is still subject to judicial harassment even after his release.
Equally concerning, Lawlor said, were the arrests last year of three human rights lawyers, Toufik Belala, Soufiane Ouali and Omar Boussag, and a young whistleblower, Yuba Manguellet.
She also brought attention to the case of the “association of families of the disappeared,” which was established during the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s to seek solutions to the forced disappearances amidst the unrest.
The organization had been repeatedly thwarted from holding events by large police forces whose presence was encircling its Algiers office.
” Its female lawyer and members, many of whom are mothers of disappeared persons, have been manhandled and forced to leave the location on these occasions”, the statement said.
” I want to say that I met almost all of these human rights activists,” Lawlor said, adding that “none of them was in any way pursuing violent acts.”
Algeria is required to uphold international human rights law, which they all must adhere to.
