Abdelmalek Tachrift: Algeria is committed to the sovereign Right to Preserve Memory by all Means

The law of criminalising French colonisation in Algeria is important, confirming that victorious Algeria will never compromise on its national memory, the Minister of Mujahideen (war veterans), Abdelmalek Tachrift, said on Monday in Algiers.

During his presentation of the draft law on criminalising French colonisation in Algeria to members of the National People’s Assembly in a public session, Tachrif emphasised that the draft “embodies the Algerian state’s commitment to preserving its national memory and enshrining historical truth. It affirms the inalienable right of the Algerian people to demand recognition of the crimes of colonisation, apology and redress, thereby strengthening historical justice and establishing relations based on mutual respect.”

He added that this text simultaneously affirms that “victorious Algeria will neither compromise on its national memory, nor accept any infringement upon the facts of its history or relinquish them under any circumstances or pretext,” highlighting the “special importance” that Algeria, under the leadership of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, attaches to preserving national memory.

The minister also noted that the law represents “an important step that will strengthen the national legislative framework concerned with protecting national memory,” and affirms that the state, with all its constitutional institutions, “is committed to its sovereign right to preserve its national history and defend its memory by all means and mechanisms.”

Tachrift explained that recalling the crimes of French colonisation “is not merely a recollection of the past, but a moral and historical duty, given the atrocities committed by the coloniser, crimes whose horror and brutality surpassed all bounds, leaving millions of martyrs, and whose material, psychological, and environmental effects remain visible and present to this day.”

He stated that colonisation deliberately spread misery among Algerians through “exile, forced displacement, systematic killing and torture, land confiscation, and attempts to obliterate the features of their character and the components of their national identity.” He added that it “did not hesitate to employ all legal, administrative, and military means to deprive the Algerian people of their rights and extinguish the flame of resistance deeply rooted in their conscience, a flame that did not die out but rather burned ever brighter until the victory of the glorious November Revolution.”

He reiterated that the colonial crimes committed against Algeria “neither expire with time, according to all international principles and conventions, nor can they be forgotten. Rather, they must be addressed through recognition of these crimes, because there can be no human justice without recognition, and no dignified future without redress.”

The draft law includes 27 articles distributed across 5 axes that deal with defining the legal nature of the crimes committed by French colonisation in Algeria as crimes that do not lapse with time, in addition to determining the legal provisions relating to the responsibility of the French state for its colonial past and the mechanisms for demanding official recognition and an explicit apology for the crimes it committed.