92002E2093

WRITTEN QUESTION E-2093/02

by Alexandros Alavanos (GUE/NGL) to the Council

(16 July 2002)

Subject: Human rights in Algeria

On the eve of the European troika's visit to Algeria, the Director of Amnesty International's Brussels office, Dick Oosting, addressed an open letter to EU representatives Javier Solana, Josep Pique and Chris Patten, calling for greater transparency in talks held with countries such as Algeria where serious violations of human rights, including killings, torture and secret detentions, continue. The letter addresses specific questions concerning human rights in Algeria to the EU's representatives for them to put to their Algerian interlocutors. Having discussed the human rights issues, does the Council consider the answers which it received from the Algerian authorities to be satisfactory?

Reply

(16-19 December 2002)

The Council is keeping a close watch on matters concerning respect for human rights in Algeria. In this context and in the framework of the meetings for regular political dialogue which have been held with Algeria since 1997, the Council has pointed out repeatedly that it is concerned by the reports on arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial arrests, the use of torture and the fate of missing persons. It invites Algeria, as it did in the letter to which the Honourable Member refers, to cooperate with relevant UN and NGO mechanisms and to provide information on the fate of several missing persons. A list of certain missing persons has been sent to the Algerian authorities for the purpose.

The Algerian authorities replied concerning certain specific cases in a note verbale dated March 2000. Since the response was not considered satisfactory, the Council has brought up these cases again (along with some other cases) at the political dialogue meetings. Algeria does not deny the possibility of slippage on the part of certain elements in the security forces, but states that it is conducting investigations into the matter and that it has already processed more than 4 000 missing persons cases, a majority of which have been closed. It states that it opens a preliminary inquiry for each case. At a meeting in December 2001, Mr Belkhadem, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, noted that the inquiries had shown that the persons concerned were dead or had emigrated or had perhaps joined the terrorists, their whereabouts remaining unknown. The EU does not consider this response to be satisfactory and will continue to raise the cases of missing persons and to emphasise strongly that any slippage and abuses must in all cases be avoided and that combating terrorism does not justify human rights violations.

As long as respect for human rights continues to pose a problem in Algeria, questions on respect for human rights will remain on the agenda for political dialogue.