ALGIERS: Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, accused of leading a crackdown on dissent since mass protests in 2019, announced Thursday he will seek a second term in an election set for September.
Tebboune, 78, was elected in 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, following months of pro-democracy protests.
“Given the desire of many parties, political and non-political organizations, and youth, I announce my intention to run for a second term,” he said in an interview posted on the presidency’s official Facebook page.
“All the victories achieved are the victories of the Algerian people, not mine,” he said.
Tebboune announced in March that the presidential election will be held on September 7, three months ahead of schedule. He gave no reasons for the decision.
Thursday’s announcement had been expected after several pro-government parties called in recent weeks for his reelection.
He joins a field of more than 30 hopefuls who have said they intend to stand.
The final list of candidates will be published on July 27 but Tebboune enters the race as favorite.
A former prime minister under longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was ousted during the 2019 protests, Tebboune has overseen a crackdown on the Hirak movement that led the protests.
The protests continued in the early months of his presidency because of his own association with Bouteflika’s two-decade rule.
Taking advantage of the restrictions on gatherings required during the Covid pandemic, Tebboune’s administration banned demonstrations by Hirak and stepped up prosecutions of dissident activists, journalists and academics.
In February, human rights watchdog Amnesty International said that five years after the pro-democracy protests erupted, Algerian authorities were still restricting the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.
In a report based on testimonies of detainees, families and lawyers, Amnesty said Algerian authorities had “escalated their repression of peaceful dissent” since the Hirak protests fizzled out in early 2020.
“It is a tragedy that five years after brave Algerians took to the streets in their masses to demand political change and reforms, the authorities have continued to wage a chilling campaign of repression,” said Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa director, Heba Morayef.
The London-based watchdog said hundreds of people had been arbitrarily arrested and detained and that dozens of peaceful protesters, journalists and activists still languished behind bars.
It called for the immediate and unconditional release of all those detained.
Algeria ranks 136 out of 180 countries and territories in the World Press Freedom Index published by media watchdog Reporters Without Borders.
Algeria president says intends to run for second term
https://arab.news/4bcd2
Algeria president says intends to run for second term
- Tebboune, 78, was elected in 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, following months of pro-democracy protests
- “Given the desire of many parties, political and non-political organizations, and youth, I announce my intention to run for a second term,” he said
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
The UN says Al-Hol camp population has dropped sharply as Syria moves to relocate remaining families
- Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade
DAMASCUS: The UN refugee agency said Sunday that a large number of residents of a camp housing family members of suspected Daesh group militants have left and the Syrian government plans to relocate those who remain.
Gonzalo Vargas Llosa, UNHCR’s representative in Syria, said in a statement that the agency “has observed a significant decrease in the number of residents in Al-Hol camp in recent weeks.”
“Syrian authorities have informed UNHCR of their plan to relocate the remaining families to Akhtarin camp in Aleppo Governorate (province) and have requested UNHCR’s support to assist the population in the new camp, which we stand ready to provide,” he said.
He added that UNHCR “will continue to support the return and reintegration of Syrians who have departed Al-Hol, as well as those who remain.”
The statement did not say how residents had left the camp or how many remain. Many families are believed to have escaped either during the chaos when government forces captured the camp from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces last month or afterward.
There was no immediate statement from the Syrian government and a government spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
At its peak after the defeat of IS in Syria in 2019, around 73,000 people were living at Al-Hol. Since then, the number has declined with some countries repatriating their citizens. The camp’s residents are mostly children and women, including many wives or widows of IS members.
The camp’s residents are not technically prisoners and most have not been accused of crimes, but they have been held in de facto detention at the heavily guarded facility.
Forces of Syria’s central government captured the Al-Hol camp on Jan. 21 during a weekslong offensive against the SDF, which had been running the camp near the border with Iraq for a decade. A ceasefire deal has since ended the fighting.
Separately, thousands of accused IS militants who were held in detention centers in northeastern Syria have been transferred to Iraq to stand trial under an agreement with the US
The US military said Friday that it had completed the transfer of more than 5,700 adult male IS suspects from detention facilities in Syria to Iraqi custody.
Iraq’s National Center for International Judicial Cooperation said a total of 5,704 suspects from 61 countries who were affiliated with IS — most of them Syrian and Iraqi — were transferred from prisons in Syria. They are now being interrogated in Iraq.
