150,000 Algerian people live in UK
A total of 150,000 Algerian people are living in the UK. Of them, some 27,000 are registered in Algeria’s embassy in London and 1,600 hold senior positions, according to figures from activists.
- Islington Councillor Mouna Hamitouche said British people did not know about what was happening in Algeria. “It was difficult to make Algeria known.”
- “Britain is a big cake. You can eat if you can but you have to respect the law and ethics,” she told reporters in London.
- The head of an association in charge of the Algerian people’s affairs in the UK said she presented a compete file about the association to Algeria President Abdelaziz Bouteflika on his visit to London in 2006.
- She did the same when Abdelaziz Belkhadem paid a similar visit to the UK. “I asked him to pay the headoffice expenses to make the association’s mission easier.” She also said she contacted Algeria’s ambassador to the UK Mohamed Saleh Dambri for coordination.
- Echorouk has learnt that some Algerian people on the run claimed they had been tortured and repressed in order to get residence and political asylum in the UK. Others were claiming they were 16 years old so that they would be treated as minors and would not be deported to Algeria.
- Hamitouche said people in Britain are living thanks to trust and not to documents. “They walk through British streets without being arrested by the police.”
- “Algerian people like to live in Islington Town Hall in London because this place is called the place of repressed people where there is an honest king.”
- Hamitouche is asking to imitate some experiences in favour of the Algerian people living in the UK. “For example, Bangladesh allocated a type of allowance for its nationals in Britain. They set up important investments there and they come back to their country with huge sum of moneys.”
- “My association sent an official invitation to the Algerian solidarity minister Djamel Oueld Ababs in June but it was reported. I met him later in Algeria and I talked to him about the headoffice expenses. He suggested offering money in Dinar and not in hard currency,” she added.