58 Thousand Detainees recorded in Algerian prisons

The General Manager of the penitentiary Administration Mokhtar Felioune has affirmed that the Algerian legislation provides for clear regulations likely to guarantee the promotion of human rights inside the country’s prisons.

• Mr. Felioune, who was the guest Monday of a special program of the National Radio, said that all the recent laws adopted so far notably that of February 2005, were geared to upgrading the detention conditions and the treatment of the detainees in all the country’s penitentiary establishments.
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• He also indicated that the Algerian legislation also allows the entire National and foreign non-governmental organizations as well as the National and foreign press to play inspection visits to Algeria’s prisons in all transparency.
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• In this connection, 1.286 people including 451 journalists and 152 foreign delegations visited Algerian prisons, he remarked.
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• He emphasized by the same token that the Algerian prisons “guaranteed the rights enshrined in the Universal declaration of human rights” and that its Administration remained “open to any internal or external control”.
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• He further noted that an adequate sanitary and health coverage was put in place in all prisons for the benefit of the detainees in addition to a continuous social reinsertion program which is smoothly implemented, he said.
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• However, Mr. Felioune brought into focus the over-population of the detainees stressing that this drawback would be dealt with efficiently thanks a program providing for the achievement of 81 new prisons in the very near future.