2024-04-08 01:18:35
The European Court of Human Rights condemned the French authorities for the living conditions “contrary to respect for human dignity” in the reception camps for the so-called “harkis” who spent years there after their evacuation from Algeria in the sixties and seventies.
Harkis are a name given by the French authorities to the Algerians who fought in the ranks of the French army against the Algerian “revolutionaries” during the Algerian liberation war.
Monte Calo International reported that the decision came based on a complaint filed by five French citizens born between 1957 and 1967. They are the sons of harkis of Algerian origins who fought alongside the French army during the Algerian War, which lasted from 1954 to 1962.
Four of the plaintiffs arrived in France during the period of Algerian independence in 1962, or were born in France in the following years and lived in reception camps for harkis, especially the Bias camp in the “Le et Garonne” region, until 1975.
They filed various appeals related to their living conditions in this camp, pointing in particular to their detention, the opening of their mail by the camp administration, the reallocation of social allowances owed to their families to camp expenses, and their education in a boarding school in the place, outside the public education system.
The court, charged with ensuring compliance with the European Convention on Human Rights, held that “the daily living conditions of the inhabitants of the Bias camp, of which the applicants were part, were not compatible with respect for human dignity and were also accompanied by attacks on individual freedoms.”
The French administrative courts had previously considered that the state was responsible for the error in this context, while the French state paid them 15 thousand euros as compensation for the material and moral damages they suffered.
The court obliged France to pay more than 19,500 euros to the four applicants who come from the same family, in proportion to the time they spent in the camp.
The late Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika described the harkis as “agents” in 2000, criticizing at the same time the conditions of their accommodation in France and refusing their return to Algeria.
Suggest a correction
2024-04-08 01:18:35