Canada is still silent, nearly a week after the arrest, last Saturday in Constantine, Algeria, of one of its nationals, imprisoned for crimes of opinion by the repressive regime in place.
Lazhar Zouaïmia was passing through Algeria for a family visit. An active activist in favor of Hirak, this popular movement calling for the democratization of the country for two years, he has participated in several of the weekly rallies held in Montreal since 2020 by the Algerian diaspora in support of this peaceful revolution known as smiles.
His family says they are devastated by this arrest, which they consider “unfair” and “arbitrary”.
“I am speechless and in shock,” drops Fatima Benzerara, his wife, a math teacher in a Montreal school, on the other end of the line, who says she does not “understand how [her] life has could have changed in this way”. “Lazhar is an irreproachable citizen. All I want today is for the Canadian government to help my husband get home.
Mr. Zouaïmia, who works as an expert technician at Hydro-Québec, was arrested by plainclothes agents at Constantine airport, in northeastern Algeria, on February 19, as he was preparing to take a flight to Algiers and then return to Montreal.
Crush popular protest
He was presented on Tuesday before an examining magistrate of the Constantine court to answer about ten counts. The regime in place, which for several weeks has intensified its repression against political opponents to its authoritarianism, accuses it, among other things, of “praising terrorist acts through media and communication technology” and of “supporting and supporting a terrorist group”.
These abusive and heavily charged formulations in Algeria — which were hit by the violence of terrorism during the dark decade of the late 1990s — are used purposely by the military in power in Algeria to discredit and crush the popular protest movement.
Since last June, a reform of the Algerian Penal Code has allowed them to assimilate to “terrorism” and “sabotage” any call to “change the system of governance by unconventional means”.
For his wife, Lazhar Zouaïmia is above all a committed citizen, an activist for Amnesty International, who has done nothing more than participate in demonstrations in Montreal against the Algerian cacique and display his political opposition on social networks.
In the pages of the news daily L’Avant-Garde Algérie, a progressive media, Lazhar Zouaïmia is described by his brother, Larbi, as a lay defender of the pro-democracy movement who was passing through Algeria to inaugurate a fountain built there in his native region of Sédrata in memory of the Canadian’s son, Mehdi, who died suddenly at the age of 21 in 2020.
L’assistance d’Ottawa
On Tuesday, the Canadian embassy in Algeria was informed by the family of Mr. Zouaïmia’s arrest, but on Friday, the Canadian consular mission had still not made contact with his wife, in Montreal, who has not been able to talk to her husband since his arrest. She says she has been living in “anguish” from this silence ever since.
On Friday, Global Affairs Canada said it was “in contact with local authorities to gather further information and [provide] consular assistance,” a spokeswoman said, without further details. The ministry also recommends that Canadians “exercise a high degree of caution in Algeria, and avoid all travel and non-essential travel to certain regions of the country.” Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s office declined to comment.
Hydro-Québec, for its part, says it is in contact with the family of its employee and ensures that it is following the “situation closely, in particular through [its] human resources and corporate security teams”, indicated Cendrix Bouchard. , spokesperson for the state-owned company.
The ongoing crackdown on Hirak activists has resulted in the arrest of more than 300 Algerians in recent months, as the movement celebrated its third anniversary this week. Ordinary protesters, opposition party leaders, and journalists are targeted for these arbitrary arrests.
“We have lost our ability to express ourselves, Algerian activist Hakim Added lamented last week in an interview with Le Devoir. A simple Instagram post can land you in jail. »
At the end of January, 40 of these prisoners detained in the prison of El-Harrach, in Algiers, went on a hunger strike to denounce the violence of their pre-trial detention, which stretches pending their trial. , and above all the absurdity of the accusations they face.
The government of Abdelmadjid Tebboune no longer hesitates to attack the opposition expressed by Algerians established abroad and citizens of another country. Since December, he has notably been arrested at the port of Algiers a Belgian national, Rachid Touam, and a French national, Amar Zebar, for their involvement in the revolution of smiles.
At the beginning of February, the organization Amnesty International sharply denounced this new cycle of repression in Algeria, which led to the “temporary” suspension of the Socialist Workers’ Party (PST), an opposition party supporting the Hirak, but also to the condemnation of Fethi Ghares, coordinator of the Democratic and Social Movement (MDS), an institution in the Algerian political landscape.
