Amnesty critical of dealing with the unemployed in Algeria

Amnesty International said on the eve of the trial of four members of the Jobless Committee in Ouargla (southern Algeria), that the Algerian authorities should stop their attempts to oppress the peaceful protests, as the four members are accused in participating in the “non-armed gatherings” in 2015, and they were sentenced to one year of effective imprisonment.

Amnesty said, in a media statement, on Wednesday, that “Algerian authorities rely more and more on using the criminal prosecution as a means to oppress the protesters, instead of imprisonment of peaceful activists, the authorities should meet their demands, as the increasing repression is not a way to deal with these issues”.

Human Rights Organization asserted that the Algerian authorities used repressive legal arsenal to oppress the dissenting voices, as it criticized the requirement to obtain prior permission to hold public gatherings; “The ban on protests is still in effect, and the protests against poverty, unemployment and corruption are growing in the oil-rich country.”