Algeria Sentences Berber Protesters

Algerians around the world have protested the nation’s political establishment since February 2019.

An Algerian court sentenced 22 protesters to a year in jail—with half the sentence suspended—and charged them approximately $275 each for carrying the Berber flag. Twenty more protesters faced a trial for the same charge on November 18. 

Officials arrested the 42 protesters on June 21 for carrying the Berber flag while protesting Algeria’s political system in Algiers. Official Algerian media reported that the protesters were charged with “undermining national unity.”

Algeria’s Berbers, also known as the Amazigh, are a North African ethnic minority who, in Algeria, reside largely in the mountainous Kabylie region. Berber activists won a victory when Algeria added the Berber’s Tamazight language as a national language in 2016 but still face political marginalization. Berbers make up almost a third of Algeria’s population.

Many of the Berber community’s recent struggles with the Algerian government have involved its language. In 2001, many Berbers rioted to make Tamazight an official language, and in 2017, Berbers protested to increase state funding for Tamazight education. Since Algeria’s independence, many Berbers have advocated for a more pluralistic and secular government rather than a more religious, Islamic government centered around the Arabic language.

Algeria’s Berber population has also involved itself in broader protests beginning in February 2019. They have demanded sweeping reforms of the political system. Demonstrations began when former-President Abdelaziz Bouteflika announced he would be running for a fifth term, despite the fact that a severe stroke in 2013 left him mostly paralyzed. Protesters also accused Bouteflika’s government of widespread corruption.

Although Bouteflika resigned in April, many continue to call for greater reformation of Algeria’s political system. The military currently runs the state under the direction of General Ahmed Gaed Salah. Although there is an election scheduled for December 12, many protesters are advocating for a later election where Algeria’s politically established elites, including the current prime minister and interim president, will have less sway.

According to Salah, the Algerian military “has no political ambition except to serve Algeria and its people. Our goodwill was further confirmed through the founding of the independent national authority organizing the elections.” 

Many protesters in Algeria blame Algeria’s entire political establishment for the nation’s widespread corruption and feel that a later election would give candidates outside of the political elite time to gain a foothold. 

Currently, all five of the candidates running in the December 12 election are affiliated with Bouteflika’s regime. Protesters frustrated with the lack of change have even hung bags of garbage in areas designated for political posters. 

As one protester, Selmaoui Seddik, said, “we need to remove the whole previous regime and that is the hardest thing.”