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OFFICIAL
STATEMENT
24 August
2010
SILENCING THE VOICE FOR JUSTICE
The Asian
Federation Against Involuntary Disappearances (AFAD), a regional
federation of human rights organizations working directly on the issue
of enforced disappearance in Asia, joins the international human rights
community in strongly condemning the
Algerian authorities for violently dispersing a protest by families of
the disappeared persons in the country.
According
to the report, the Algerian law enforcers
violently broke up a peaceful protest of some 40 relatives of the
disappeared in front of an official human rights body, the National
Advisory Commission for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (Commission
Nationale Consultative de Promotion et de Protection des Droits del'
Homme, CNCPPDH) in Algiers on 11 August 2010. The police did not
even spare the aging mothers and grandmothers from physical violence as
they were harshly pushed away and hit at random by the police. Several
human rights defenders and lawyers who attempted to intervene also
sustained injury in the process. Four of the protestors were arrested
and briefly detained by the police in an obvious ploy to intimidate and
discourage them from holding similar political activities.
For more
than a decade, the Families of the Disappeared of Algeria have been
traditionally holding a peaceful protest to demand for truth, justice
and adequate reparation for human rights violations.
Official records show that more than 200,000 cases
of human rights violations were committed
during the internal conflict that began in 1992. The severity and
magnitude of these violations amount to no less than crimes against
humanity. One of these is
enforced disappearance. Thousands of people “disappeared”
after having been arrested by the
security forces or have been abducted by armed groups and never seen
again. They are believed to have been summarily executed. Despite the
tireless efforts of victims and their families to search for the truth
and to demand for justice, the Algerian authorities have not taken
concrete action to clarify the circumstances of the crimes and to bring
those responsible to justice.
Algeria's Constitution guarantees in
Article 41, the freedoms of expression, association and assembly. The
African Charter on Human and Peoples' Rights, to which Algeria is a
party to, in Article 11, also guarantees the right of everyone to
assemble freely with others. The right to assemble peacefully is
also provided for in Article 21 of the International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights (ICCPR), which Algeria ratified in 1989. The action
by the Algerian authorities is not only a blatant violation of the
protestors’ constitutional rights, but also against international human
rights standards.
AFAD
therefore calls on the Algerian government
to uphold the fundamental human rights of
its citizens. It must immediately conduct a full, independent and
impartial investigation into allegations of violent dispersal by
security forces against the protestors. The voice of the victims and
their families are essential to any process of reconciliation and for
building a solid foundation for a genuine democracy.
For any
democratic state who wants to finally put a closure of its dark history,
it must encourage and ensure a national discourse where freedom of
expression, assembly and association, and the right to information, are
guaranteed and fully respected. Democracy can only be strengthened and
entrenched when society is fully aware of its fundamental
human rights and freedoms and when its
government consciously lays the ground for its full realization. Without
doing so, it is doomed to repeat its historical mistakes.
Algeria
must also comply with its international obligations as well as its
commitment displayed through its signing of the International Convention
for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance on 6
February 2007 by ordering prompt, thorough, independent and impartial
investigations into all past and current allegations of enforced
disappearances and by assisting the victims’ families in their search
for truth and justice.
Signed and authenticated by:
 |
 |
|
MUGIYANTO |
MARY AILEEN D. BACALSO |
| Chairperson |
Secretary-General |
