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Algeria Cracks down on Activists in Bid to Break Protest Movement

Demonstrators chant slogans during a protest demanding the removal of the ruling elite in Algiers, Algeria July 19, 2019. (Reuters)
Demonstrators chant slogans during a protest demanding the removal of the ruling elite in Algiers, Algeria July 19, 2019. (Reuters)
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Algeria Cracks down on Activists in Bid to Break Protest Movement

Demonstrators chant slogans during a protest demanding the removal of the ruling elite in Algiers, Algeria July 19, 2019. (Reuters)
Demonstrators chant slogans during a protest demanding the removal of the ruling elite in Algiers, Algeria July 19, 2019. (Reuters)

Algeria has intensified a crackdown on an anti-government protest movement, targeting social media users in a bid to stop demonstrations resuming once coronavirus restrictions end.

Weekly protests rocked the North African country for more than a year and only stopped in March due to the novel coronavirus outbreak.

The "Hirak" protest movement caused the downfall of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April 2019 after 20 years in power. It has continued demanding an overhaul of Algeria's governance system, in place since independence from France in 1962.

Authorities have made about 200 arrests linked to the protests since the country's coronavirus restrictions came into effect three months ago, according to Said Salhi, vice president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights.

"The authorities have taken advantage of the lull to arrest the maximum number of activists," he said.

Protesters are being pursued for "crimes of opinion and expression connected to posts on social media, particularly Facebook", he said, with some of their homes searched and mobile phones confiscated.

Most of the authorities' actions are based on changes to the penal code that were passed in April amid the health crisis and have been denounced by human rights activists.

'Muzzling the media'

Salhi called the moves "an irresponsible attack, verging on provocation, against fundamental human rights".

On Thursday, more than 20 opposition activists were summoned to appear in seven separate hearings, mostly in trials that had been delayed due to the pandemic.

Those accused include figures in the protest movement, political activists, journalists and people accused of mocking the regime online.

"The government doesn't believe in change, it refuses to listen to the people," lawyer Mustapha Bouchachi was quoted as saying this week in French-language daily Liberte.

"In my opinion, it is making these arrests to break the Hirak," he added.

According to detainees' rights association CNLD, 60 prisoners of conscience are currently jailed.

In a sign the government might be nervous about the public mood, several academics rushed to its defense in official media this week, accusing a "neo-Hirak" of being "in the service of a foreign plan".

But press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) has called on the Algerian authorities to "stop using the justice system to muzzle the media".

"The increase in legal proceedings against Algerian journalists is extremely worrying and indicates a blatant deterioration of press freedom in Algeria," RSF director for North Africa, Souhaieb Khayati, said in a statement.

Four Algerian journalists were prosecuted or sentenced to prison this week.

Opposite impact?

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has also urged Algerian authorities to "stop using the COVID-19 pandemic as an excuse to clamp down on press freedom".

Some of Algeria's coronavirus lockdown measures have been gradually lifted since June 7.

But gatherings, including the weekly Hirak marches, are still strictly forbidden.

Algeria has officially reported 11,385 cases and 811 deaths from the COVID-19 illness.

Provincial areas have seen sporadic mobilizations in support of detainees in recent weeks, particularly in the northeastern Kabylie region, while Algiers has remained quiet.

Defying the restrictions, protesters across the country rallied on Friday to call for the government to step down, according to NGOs and videos shared online.

The CNLD reported about a dozen arrests were made in Kabylie's Bejaia and several more in the region's other main cities of Tizi Ouzou and Bouira.

Small numbers of protesters have also been arrested elsewhere across the country, including in the northwestern city of Oran, according to the CNLD.

An anti-government coalition within the Pact for the Democratic Alternative has urged Algerians to "stay mobilized but vigilant in order to engage forcefully in the resumption of peaceful protests" when the health situation allows.

And although there were calls on social media to restart weekly protests on Friday, activists, lawyers, student associations and political parties warned of the health risks.

But instead of crushing the unprecedented, leaderless protest movement, the crackdown could have the opposite effect.

"There is a general feeling of 'hogra'" prevailing among the population, said Salhi, using an Algerian term that refers to injustice and abuse of power.

"Some are already planning to go back to the streets" despite the coronavirus risk, he said.

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Arab World

Sudanese Return to their Homeland, Hoping for Stability but Finding it Still Wrecked by War

A view of one of the displacement sites in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 27, 2025. WFP/Mohamed Galal/Handout via REUTERS
A view of one of the displacement sites in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 27, 2025. WFP/Mohamed Galal/Handout via REUTERS
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Sudanese Return to their Homeland, Hoping for Stability but Finding it Still Wrecked by War

A view of one of the displacement sites in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 27, 2025. WFP/Mohamed Galal/Handout via REUTERS
A view of one of the displacement sites in Tawila, North Darfur, Sudan April 27, 2025. WFP/Mohamed Galal/Handout via REUTERS

Ahmed Abdalla sat on a sidewalk in downtown Cairo, waiting for a bus that will start him on his journey back to Sudan. He doesn't know what he'll find in his homeland, wrecked and still embroiled in a 2-year-old war.

His wife and son, who weren't going with him, sat next to him to bid him goodbye. Abdalla plans to go back for a year, then decide whether it’s safe to bring his family.

“There is no clear vision. Until when do we have to wait?” Abdalla said, holding two bags of clothes. “These moments I’m separating from my family are really hard,” he said, as his wife broke down in tears.

Abdullah is among tens of thousands of Sudanese who were driven from their homes and are now going back. They are hoping for some stability after the military in recent months recaptured the capital, Khartoum, and other areas from its rival, the Rapid Support Forces.

But the war still rages in some parts of the country. In areas recaptured by the military, people are returning to find their neighborhoods shattered, often with no electricity and scarce food, water and services.

The battle for power between the military and the RSF has caused one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world. Famine is spreading. At least 20,000 people have been killed, according to the UN, though the figure is likely higher.

Nearly 13 million people fled their homes, some 4 million of whom streamed into neighboring countries while the rest sought shelter elsewhere in Sudan.

Those returning find few services

A relatively small portion of the displaced are returning so far, but the numbers are accelerating. Some 400,000 internally displaced Sudanese have gone back to homes in the Khartoum area, neighboring Gezira province and southeast Sennar province, the International Organization for Migration estimates.

Since Jan. 1, about 123,000 Sudanese returned from Egypt, including nearly 50,000 so far in April, double the month before, the IOM said. Some 1.5 million Sudanese fled to Egypt during the war, according to UNHCR.

Nfa Dre, who had fled to northern Sudan, moved back with his family to Khartoum North, a sister city of the capital, right after the military retook it in March.

They found decomposing bodies and unexploded ordnance in the streets. Their home had been looted.

“Thank God, we had no loss of lives, just material losses, which matter nothing compared to lives,” Dre said. Three days of work made their home inhabitable.

But conditions are hard. Not all markets have reopened and few medical services are available. Dre said residents rely on charity kitchens operated by a community activist group called the Emergency Response Rooms, or ERR. They haul water from the Nile River for cooking and drinking. His home has no electricity, so he charges his phone at a mosque with solar panels.

“We asked the authorities for generators, but they replied that they don’t have the budget to provide them,” Dre said. “There was nothing we could say.”

Aid is lacking

Salah Semsaya, an ERR volunteer, said he knew of displaced people who tried returning to Wad Madani, the capital of Gezira province, but found the basics of life so lacking that they went back to their displacement shelters.

Others are too wary to try. “They’re worried about services for their children. They’re worrying about their livelihoods,” said Sheldon Yett, UNICEF Representative to Sudan.

Throughout the war, there has been no functional government. A military-backed transitional administration was based in Port Sudan, on the Red Sea coast, but had little reach or resources. After retaking Khartoum, the military said it will establish a new interim government.

The UN is providing cash assistance to some. UNICEF managed to bring several trucks of supplies into Khartoum. But aid remains limited, “and the scale of needs far exceeds available resources,” said Assadullah Nasrullah, communications officer at UNHCR Sudan.

Darfur and other areas remain violent

Sudanese in Egypt wrestle with the question of whether to return. Mohamed Karaka, who has been in Cairo with his family for nearly two years, told The Associated Press he was packing up to head back to the Khartoum area. But at the last minute, his elder brother, also in Egypt, decided it was not yet safe and Karaka canceled the trip.

“I miss my house and the dreams I had about building a life in Sudan. My biggest problem are my children. I didn’t want to raise them outside Sudan, in a foreign country,” said Karaka.

Hundreds of Sudanese take the two or three buses each day for southern Egypt, the first leg in the journey home.

Abdalla was among a number of families waiting for the midnight bus earlier this month.

He’s going back to Sudan but not to his hometown of el-Fasher in North Darfur province. That area has been and remains a brutal war zone between RSF fighters and army troops. Abdalla and his family fled early in the war as fighting raged around them.

“We miss every corner of our house. We took nothing with us when we left except two changes of clothes, thinking that the war would be short,” Abdalla’s wife, Majda, said.

“We hear bad news about our area every single day," she said. "It’s all death and starvation.”

Abdalla and his family first moved to el-Gadarif in southeast Sudan before moving to Egypt in June.

He was heading back to el-Gadarif to see if it’s livable. Many of the schools there are closed, sheltering displaced people. If stability doesn’t take hold and schooling doesn’t resume, he said, his children will remain in Egypt.

“This is an absurd war,” Abdalla said. He pointed out how the RSF and military were once allies who together repressed Sudan’s pro-democracy movement before they turned on each other. “Both sides were unified at some point and hit us. When they started to differ, they still hit us,” he said.

“We only want peace and security and stability.”