The Government of Canada has decided to remain silent in the face of Algeria’s sentencing to five years in prison, in absentia, of Quebecer of Algerian origin Lazhar Zouaïmia. The authoritarian regime of this Maghreb country considers him a threat because of his pro-democracy activism, described as “peaceful and reasonable” by his lawyers, and which he has exercised from Montreal.
The man, a provincial civil servant and active human rights activist with the NGO Amnesty International, returned to Canada last May after being forcibly detained in Algeria for more than two months. He had gone to visit his family at the beginning of the year. He learned of his conviction from his Algerian lawyers a few weeks ago, without ever having received a notice for his appearance or obtained to date the indictment and conviction pronounced against him.
“This incredible story continues with this condemnation in the face of which the government cannot remain silent, indicated in an interview with the To have to Lazhar Zouaïmia. It’s a warning to the Algerian diaspora here, and the effect is there: many people I know are now terrified of visiting their families in Algeria. Some have even decided to be less heard in the contestation of the Algerian regime which is expressed from Montreal. »
Since 2019, Algeria has sought to put down the popular movement known as Hirak, which calls for the democratization of the country and which demands the end of the authoritarian regime led by the military.
“My condemnation is an attempt to intimidate by a third country, within Canadian borders, against those who freely exercise their right to speak and oppose, and Canada should not accept this”, continues Mr. Zouaïmia.
Joined by The duty, Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs tersely said it was aware of the case “of a Canadian citizen who was in Algeria and is now back in Canada”, but declined to answer any questions about the conviction in absentia of this national after his online activities, carried out from Montreal, had been criminalized by a foreign country. Same story on the side of the office of the head of Canadian diplomacy, Mélanie Joly, who declined our interview requests.
In a letter to several Canadian elected officials, including The duty became aware, Montreal lawyer Julius Grey, who is defending Mr. Zouaïmia, called at the beginning of the month “the highest Canadian authorities to react with clarity and firmness to such human rights violations “, can we read.
“It is important to solemnly reaffirm that all Canadian citizens are equal before the law, including those with dual nationality, and that none of them can be punished for acts that took place on its territory and which, moreover, are legitimized and protected by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, ”continues the magistrate.
Systematic repression
After having temporarily listened to the voice of protest expressed by Hirak in 2019, Algeria has since plunged into a firm and systematic repression of this dissent, even going so far as to modify an article of its penal code, 87 bis , in order to assimilate to terrorism any call and any democratic demand expressed in the public square, including online. The legislative change is fraught with meaning, in a country hit in the 1990s by Islamic terrorism at the origin of the “dark decade” and whose trauma Algeria still lives with.
It is also within this new framework that Lazhar Zouaïmia was arrested last February, when he was about to return to Montreal. The Quebecer was accused of having “praised terrorist acts through technological means” by the regime of Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
His publications, all produced from Montreal, he assures us, carried the general demands of the movement calling for more freedom, the establishment of the rule of law and the replacement of the military regime by a democracy.
He was imprisoned for 40 days, then held under house arrest for this “crime of opinion”, in the eyes of the Algerian authorities, until May, when, after several unsuccessful attempts, he managed to board a flight in the direction of from Canada.
Without explanation, Algiers reclassified his accusations as an “attack on national unity”, with a view to his conviction. The charge is being used heavily against journalists covering calls for the country’s democratization, protesters, trade unionists, political opposition figures and other citizens calling for regime change in Algeria.
rights violated
Last Sunday, the Algerian journalist, poet and publisher Lazhari Labter was the latest victim of this repression, arrested in the middle of the night without his family knowing “by what authority or for what reason”, wrote his son, Amine , on Facebook. Mr. Labter, 70, is a strong figure in the Algerian intellectual movement. A founding member of the National Union of Journalists, he is also the publisher of some sixty books and essays and the author of some forty novels, collections of poetry and chronicles on Algeria, its hopes and its constraints.
The North African country continues to fall in the world ranking of press freedom compiled by Reporters Without Borders. In 2022, it was placed at 134e rank, out of 180.
Algeria is also in the crosshairs of the UN Human Rights Council, which earlier this month adopted a series of recommendations aimed at strengthening the protection of human rights in the Maghreb country. .
In addition, the international body recommends “the repeal of the amendments to article 87 bis of the Algerian Penal Code”, whose broad definition of terrorism is used by the regime in Algiers to imprison opponents of the regime. It also mentions that Algeria should end “the use of custodial sentences for press offences, as stipulated in article 54 of its Constitution”.
“Canadians of Algerian origin should be able to continue to exercise their freedom of expression here without living in fear of being persecuted if they decide to go to Algeria,” said Zouaïmia. He can no longer go there, because of the sentence that has just been pronounced against him. “But that’s not going to shut me up. I will continue to promote respect for rights and democracy, in Algeria as elsewhere in the world.”