Human Rights in Algeria

Human Rights in Algeria
Human Rights Watch Testimony by Tom Malinowski To the House of Representatives Committee on International Relations, Subcommittee on International Terrorism and Nonproliferation

... I welcome the Bush administration’s recognition that the fight against terror must rest in part on the promotion of democratic freedoms and human rights. But that recognition must be translated into consistent policies. And Algeria is an important test case.

Since the events of September 11, 2001, several U.S. officials have visited Algeria and commended that country’s response to armed insurgents. Assistant Secretary of State William Burns, for instance, said in December 2002 that Washington “has much to learn from Algeria on ways to fight terrorism.” Algerians have suffered the ravages of terrorism as much as any people on earth, and those acts deserve our full condemnation. Nevertheless, in human rights terms, Algeria, with its documented record of torture and “disappearances,” is in many ways a model of how not to fight terrorism...

Estimates of the number of Algerians killed in political violence since 1992 range between 100,000 and 200,000. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika was quoted on February 23 as putting the figure at 150,000. In fact, there are no precise data on the number of those killed, or the breakdown of civilians, security force members, and armed militants among the victims, or the proportion of the killings attributable on the one hand to armed groups and on the other hand to the security forces and their civilian allies.

Civilians have born the brunt of the violence, from the scores of journalists, intellectuals, and cultural and political figures who were targeted for assassination in the cities, to the thousands of ordinary villagers who were victims of indiscriminate massacres both in remote areas and at the outskirts of Algiers. In addition, many women were kidnapped and raped by members of armed groups. Authorship of these attacks was rarely established; the various armed groups almost never claimed responsibility for specific operations; and authorities rarely conducted investigations worthy of the name or brought the suspected perpetrators to justice.

In the name of combating the insurgency, security forces arrested and tortured thousands of suspects. They engaged in summary executions, often rounding up victims arbitrarily in reprisal for attacks on their own troops. And between 1993 and 1997, they picked up and made “disappear” an estimated 7,000 Algerians who remain unaccounted for until this day.