GENEVA: A United Nations rights expert on Thursday denounced Algeria‘s harassment and criminalisation of human rights defenders, highlighting a number of cases including that of independent journalist Merzoug Touati.
Mary Lawlor, the UN special rapporteur on human rights defenders, said she was “deeply disappointed” to see the situation had not improved since she visited Algeria in late 2023.
“Human rights defenders in different fields of work, some of whom I met, are still being arbitrarily arrested, judicially harassed, intimidated and criminalised for their peaceful activities under vaguely worded provisions, such as ‘harming the security of the state’,” she said in a statement.
Lawlor, an independent expert appointed by the UN human rights council but who does not speak on behalf of the United Nations, voiced particular concerns about Touati’s case.
The independent journalist and rights advocate “has been subjected for years to trials on spurious charges”, she said, saying it was “among the most alarming cases I have recently examined”.
He had been detained three times since the start of last year, she said.
During his latest arrest last August, she said, “his family was reportedly subjected to ill-treatment. He was then allegedly physically and psychologically tortured while in police custody for five days”.
“He continues to be judicially harassed 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 drew attention to the case of the “association of families of the disappeared”, set up during the Algerian Civil War in the 1990s to seek answers over the forcible disappearances amid the violence.
The organisation had repeatedly been prevented from holding events by huge contingents of police forces surrounding its office in Algiers.
“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 repeat that I met nearly all of these human rights defenders,” Lawlor said, adding that “not one of them was in any way pursuing violent acts”.
“They all must be treated in accordance with international human rights law, which Algeria is bound to respect.”
