Zaki Hannache, a figure in Hirak, the popular protest movement that forced Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika out of office in 2019, was detained for several weeks in Algeria earlier this year and prosecuted for “apology for terrorist acts”.
Algerian human rights activist, seeking asylum in Tunisia, announced this Saturday, November 19, 2022, that he had obtained refugee status from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
Zaki Hannache is a figure in Hirak, the popular protest movement that forced Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika out of office in 2019.
This activist, very active on social networks and committed to the release of prisoners of conscience, was detained for several weeks in Algeria at the start of the year and prosecuted for apologizing for terrorist acts and spreading false information.
After his release, he traveled to Tunisia to seek asylum there. But, learning that the Tunisian authorities were looking for him to hand him over to Algeria,” he asked for UNHCR protection.
“I am not a terrorist”
The United Nations refugee agency has decided to grant me refugee status, he announced on Facebook on Friday. Furthermore, the UNHCR has confirmed that I am not a terrorist or a criminal.
Determination of refugee status is primarily the responsibility of States, but UNHCR, in some cases, can also take over this procedure.
In a communication to the Algerian government in mid-September, the UN Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, expressed serious concerns about the arrest and detention of Mr. Hannache, as well as the accusations brought against him, which appear to be directly related to his work as a human rights defender.
The precedent of Slimane Bouhafs
This week, 55 organizations, notably Algerian and Tunisian, but also international, said they feared that Hannache would be sent back to Algeria, where he would face up to 35 years in prison, for the sole fact of having used (his right to ) freedom of expression.
Tunisian authorities must in no way repeat the dangerous precedent of Slimane Bouhafs, an Algerian activist kidnapped in Tunisia and deported to Algeria in August 2021, they said in a statement.
More than forty Tunisian human rights organizations then claimed that he had been handed over to Algeria by the Tunisian authorities, despite his refugee status.
Since 2019, Algerian authorities have prosecuted hundreds of people in connection with Hirak or the defense of human rights, according to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD).