160 MPs Write To Mujahideen Organization To Support Criminalization Law

The recent visits of the French Minister of Europe and Foreign Affairs, Jean-Yves Le Drian, to Algeria, have strengthened the Algerian-French rapprochement after nearly a year of stalemate, while the chances of enacting a law criminalizing France’s colonial practices in Algeria are being revived, as the project has been stalled for years at the level of the National People’s Assembly, or lower house of parliament.

Since the fall of the regime of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the voices of many politicians and revolutionary family organizations have risen, calling for the revival of the proposed criminalization law dating back to 2005, following the enactment by the French parliament of a law glorifying the heinous colonial practices.

Many politicians and members of the revolutionary family believed that the fall of the regime of former President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, under the pressure of the popular movement, would remove political obstacles to the long-awaited enactment of this law, but successive months and weeks revealed that the issue was not as easy as expected.

And for the first time, the request to criminalize the brutal French colonialism is being raised by the first revolutionary organization in Algeria, represented by the National Organization of the Mujahideen, with its Acting Secretary-General, Mohand Omar Ben Al-Hajj, calling on the Algerian authorities, headed by the President of the National People’s Assembly, Slimane Chenine, to resurrect the suspended bill.

The initiators of the legal project, Mustapha Abdi of the National Liberation Front and the former representative of the Renaissance Movement, Mohamed Hadibi, renewed their invitation to the Algerian authorities, in order to respond to the proposal, but the invitation has not been answered until now.

In this regard, sources from the National Organization of Mujahideen told “Echorouk” that its Acting Secretary-General received a signed correspondence from 160 deputies from the various parliamentary blocs represented in the lower chamber of Parliament, requesting the organization to support ongoing efforts to revive the stalled project.

The same source stated that the 160 deputies have begun drafting a new draft law criminalizing French colonial practices in Algeria, and they are in the process of depositing it at the level of the office of the National People’s Assembly, in preparation for referring it to the Assembly’s Legal, Administrative Affairs and Freedoms Commission for in-depth study.

According to the same source, the organization, contrary to what was the case during the era of its late Secretary General, Said Abadou, decided to go far in support of the new draft law until it materializes, in fulfillment of the memory of the glorious Algerian martyrs and in response to the February 23rd French parliament’s law glorifying the horrendous colonialism.

It is known that the enactment of such a law requires sponsorship from the top of the political pyramid, given the specificity of the bilateral relations between Algeria and Paris, as previous experiences have confirmed that the burying of the previous two relevant legal projects stemmed from a political decision signed by former Prime Minister, Ahmed Ouyahia, who is now detained in El Harrach prison, according to the initiators of the proposed law.