Algeria remembers French mass killings
>>SETIF: Algeria yesterday honoured thousands killed by French forces in 1945, as the North African country waits for Paris to apologise for its colonial-era crimes.
Pro-independence rioting following a demonstration in the final months of World War II prompted the massacre of thousands of mostly unarmed Muslim civilians, a turning point in Algeria’s long independence struggle.
The killings would have a transformative impact on the nascent anti-colonial movement. A full-blown independence war broke out nine years later, finally leading to the country’s independence in 1962.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who led the first national day of remembrance for the killings yesterday, has described them as “crimes against humanity”.
At time of press, authorities were to hold a series of events in Setif, 300 kilometres east of Algiers, including a march to the spot where Saal was killed. Setif remains a highly sensitive episode for Algerians, as well as for some in France.
Paris only officially recognised it in 2005 when the ambassador in Algiers called the massacres “an inexcusable tragedy”.
In March, President Emmanuel Macron admitted “in the name of France” that lawyer and independence figure Ali Boumendjel had been detained, tortured and killed by French forces who then covered his death up as a suicide.
Last year, Mr Macron tasked French historian Benjamin Stora to assess how France has dealt with its colonial legacy, and urged officials to accelerate the opening of French archives on the Algerian war.
Meanwhile, thousands protested in Algiers on Friday during a weekly demonstration of the Hirak pro-democracy movement despite a heavy police presence, AFP correspondents said.
Protesters changed route for the first time since marches resumed in February in order to avoid police roadblocks.
“Whatever you do, we will not stop,” protesters shouted, addressing a massive police presence in the centre of the capital.
Some held pictures of prisoners of conscience — opposition and Hirak activists — demanding their release.
“Repression only strengthens the will to fight and cements the solidarity of those subjected to it,” other signs read.
The CNLD prisoners’ rights group says over 70 people are currently imprisoned in connection to the Hirak or cases related to freedom of expression, and that some detainees have begun hunger strikes to protest their conditions. Police used force to break up last Friday’s rally in Algiers and made several arrests. Most of those detained have since been released. Amnesty International on Friday called on Algerian authorities to “allow for peaceful protests without resorting to force and other punitive measures unnecessarily”.
“All those detained solely for exercising their rights to freedom of expression, association or peaceful assembly must be immediately and unconditionally released and have all charges against them dropped,” said Amna Guellali, Amnesty’s regional deputy director.
“The police forces’ heavy-handed response to brave protesters taking part in the Hirak movement exemplifies why people across Algeria are calling for political reform,” she added in a statement. “The use of unlawful force and arbitrary detentions is unacceptable.”