Speaking during a dialogue with the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, as part of the 48th session of the Human Rights Council, Mr. Breika stressed Algeria’s full responsibility for the serious abuses, kidnappings and torture practices committed by the armed militias of the Polisario, against opponents and critical voices of the separatist leadership in the Tindouf camps.
He said he shared the conclusions of the report of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and his concerns “about the intensification of arbitrary detention practices aimed at repressing freedom of opinion and expression, in particular by armed groups that impose their law by force and violence with the support of their state mentors, like the Polisario militias that resort to kidnappings and torture in detention centers on Algerian soil, including the sinister prisons of Errachid and Dhaybiya, where hundreds of Sahrawi opponents of the separatist leadership have been killed.”
The use of kidnappings and arbitrary detentions in the Sahrawi camps in southern Algeria has intensified since the Polisario militias violated the ceasefire agreement, he noted, specifying that any Sahrawi who refuses to join these militias is arrested and imprisoned in full view of the Algerian authorities, who have transformed these camps into a lawless zone.
In this sense, he denounced the impunity enjoyed by the leaders of the Polisario and the Algerian army, who deprive victims of all means to claim their rights or to resort to justice, in flagrant disregard of international law and Algeria’s international obligations.
“We therefore ask the working group to include the Tindouf camps in southern Algeria in its visit programs,” he argued, also calling on “the international community to put pressure on Algeria to put an end to the lawless state that prevails in the camps,” and to put an end to the practices of arbitrary detention and kidnapping of opponents.
2024-09-05 15:43:16