Hakim Debbazi, 55, arrested in February for social media posts, died on April 24 in prison.
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The family of an Algerian prisoner of conscience who died in prison took legal action on May 4 against the Algerian state for “manslaughter” and “no assistance to the person in danger”, announced his lawyers. Hakim Debbazi, 55, arrested in February for publications on social networks in connection with the pro-democracy movement Hirak, died on April 24 in prison, according to the Algerian League for Human Rights (LADDH). A complaint was filed in the Sidi Mhamed court in Algiers by lawyer Heloise Sadeg, maternal aunt of the deceased detainee, claiming “a billion euros of repair” for the family of his nephew, the lawyers said in a statement.
Hakim Debbazi was “found dead in troubled circumstances in Koléa prison” near Algiers, the defense said. Heloise Sadeg considers that “the director of Koléa prison, the general director of prisons, the investigating judge, the Minister of Justice and the Algerian State” are “responsible for this national drama which moved all of Algeria in the middle of Ramadan”, explained to AFP Me Tarek Mektoub, one of the family’s lawyers. In the press release, the lawyers deplore the “deafening silence” of the Ministry of Justice which “has still not given an explanation or performed an autopsy to determine the real causes of the political detainee’s death”.
Amnesty International is calling on the Algerian authorities to open an independent, thorough and transparent investigation into the circumstances of Hakim Debbazi’s death in Kolea prison yesterday. The findings of the investigation must be made public.
— Amnesty Algeria (@AmnestyAlgerie) April 25, 2022
The death of Hakim Debbazi has aroused a wave of emotion in Algeria. Before Hakim Debbazi, two prisoners of conscience, Mohamed Tamalt in 2016 and Kamel Eddine Fekhar in 2019, died in detention.
According to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD), more than 260 people are still imprisoned in Algeria in connection with the Hirak or the defense of individual freedoms.