Algeria: lawyers refuse to criminalise illegal migrants

Legal practitioners Wednesday called on authorities to move and put an end to the legal vacuum regarding judicial handling with illegal migration.

• According to them, there is no clear legal text on how to deal with arrested illegal migrants. Others believe that the criminalisation of this phenomenon is a “scandal.”
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• On a seminar on illegal migration held in Tlemcen province (west of Algiers), lawyer Charef Abdelmalek said this new phenomenon is handled on the basis of the 1976’s marine law. “Yet, this law does not contain any clear legal text on the phenomenon of collective migration cross the sea.”
• For his part, lawyer Rehal Mohamed Seghir described the imprisonment of illegal migrants as a “scandal.” According to him, illegal migrants are victims as the Constitution stipulates that every Algerian citizen has the right in a decent life.
• Lawyer and PM Mohamed Ben Hamou called on officials who do not care about young people dying in the sea to resign. For him, the solution is to provide appropriate salaries to face the phenomenon of illegal migration.