Algeria: Here are the characteristics of the “Emergency Passport”

The Algerian government has unveiled the specifications and technical characteristics of the emergency passport destined to Algerian legal and illegal migrants.

According to the latest edition of the Official Gazette, the original specimen of the 12-page emergency passport is stored in the Department of Interior and Local Assemblies and is readable by a special machine (through an automatic reading zone) or (MRZ) containing personal codified information and passport expiry date which has been set to one year.

This emergency passport is a closed rectangular size document of a length of 125 mm and a width of 88 mm, its upper and lower left edges are rounded.

The radius of the passport’s curvature is 3 mm and composed of 6 layers. The document cover is composed of a plastic having a thickness of 0.85 mm, including the cover page, of dark green color. The golden letters of the cover are in three languages (Arabic, French and English).

The internal pages of the emergency passport are made of buff colored paper, with a thickness of 105 microns, and in the center is applied in watermark the state’s seal with a diameter of 50 mm.

The security background treated in two base colors, has the printed seal of the state within a guilloche in the shape

of a rosette and the rest of the page consists of a drawing geometric form including micro-printed text-lines and the page number is reprinted in the security background on the outer part of the rosette.

Each page except, for page 2, contains the number of the page in a typographic process in black colour.

The first cover page includes, in Arabic, the following recommendations such as the passport is personal, it can’t be lent or sent by post and that any infringement will invalidate the document. In case of loss or destruction, the holder should immediately inform the competent administrative or consular authority.

Page 2, called the passport data page, is protected by a transparent self-adhesive laminate. It contains the displayed data of the holder, a visual zone and a machine-readable zone. On the visual zone, all field designations are given in three languages with print in Arabic and Latin characters.

Pages from 3 to12, each of them include on top and in the center, the “visa” mention in Arabic and Latin characters.

Meanwhile, in a related context, the period set for the free movement with the foreign passport and national identity card has been extended until next June 2016 by the relevant authorities.

This was hailed as good news by numerous bi-national Algerians living abroad who do not possess a biometric passport. The period of circulation with the foreign passport and the national identity card was extended until June, as confirmed on Monday by Mr Djamel Bouras, an FLN MP representing the Algerian immigration for the north of France.

Specifically, an Algerian national can enter and leave the home country by presenting only his or her foreign passport and an Algerian national identity card.

Initially, the authorities had decided to end this exception measure by next January. “But we asked for its extension because many Algerians, numbering more than a million have not yet secured their biometric passports. Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal and Interior Minister Noureddine Bedoui have finally responded positively to our pressing request,” Mr Bouras said.