The movement started on January 28, 2022 from El-Harrach prison, but the hunger strikers have since been dispersed to different prisons in the country.
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No less than forty detainees began a hunger strike on January 28, 2022 at El-Harrach prison, in Algiers, to denounce their conditions of detention. They also protest “against the false accusations, as well as the unjustified extensions of pretrial detention”wrote lawyer Abdelghani Badi on his Facebook page.
Most have been waiting for their trial for several months. “They reject the charges brought against them on the basis of article 87 bis of the penal code which accuses them of terrorism”whereas “It’s just ordinary citizens who have expressed their opinion”, affirms Abdelghani Bady. Twenty-three of them were transferred on February 2, 2022 to other prisons in the region, according to the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights.
“First, it will keep the detainees away from their lawyers, then it will penalize the families of the detainees who will have to travel long distances to visit them.“, declares lawyer Abdellah Haboul of the committee for the defense of detainees. According to Me Haboul, “if it is an accused detainee, the detainee can only be transferred after consulting the court before which he is being prosecuted”.
He points out that, of course, “there is a political objective: to break the momentum of this strike”. The Algerian authorities also fear a return to protest as the third anniversary of Hirak approaches, which began on February 22, 2019.
Today, no less than 300 people accused of undermining state security, undermining territorial integrity, subversive action, etc., languish in the country’s prisons. Most are prosecuted for simply expressing an opinion, in particular through publications on social networks.