Tahar and Bachir Bourefis

In early 2015, Boudehane Zohra, Tahar's wife and mother of Bachir Bourefis, was subject to numerous intimidations by the Algerian judicial authorities. Summoned several times by the prosecutor, Mrs Boudehane was also forced to sign documents without being able to read them. A second son of the victim has also been subject to intimidation by the police.

Suspected to be sympathetic to the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Tahar Bourefis was arrested at his home by soldiers of the National People's Army (ANP) on the night of 22 to 23 August 1996 and his son Bachir a few months later. Since then, the two victims' relatives never heard from them, as the Algerian authorities refusing to inform them of their fate.

Given these facts and the Bourefis family's inability to obtain truth and reparation in their country, on 19 November 2009 Alkarama sent a complaint to the UN Human Rights Committee (HRC), which subsequently adopted a decision in 2014 in which it condemned the Algerian authorities for the violation, among others, of the right to life and of the absolute prohibition of torture set forth in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) ratified by Algeria in September 1989.

National reconciliation cannot be synonymous with impunity

The Algerian authorities rely on the provisions of the 2005 Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation, which punishes "anyone who, through his statements, writings or any other act, uses or exploits the wounds of the national tragedy to harm the democratic institutions of the Republic of Algeria, to weaken the State, to harm the reputation of its agents who served it with dignity, or tarnish Algeria's image internationally."

Even though the numbers differ, it is estimated that the Algerian civil war claimed 200,000 victims. Of these victims, thousands were subjected to enforced disappearances following their arrest by Algerian security forces. The authorities have done nothing to clarify the circumstances of these crimes and bring their perpetrators to justice. The UN Working Group on Enforced Disappearances (WGEID) has repeatedly denounced these particularly serious human rights violations and the impunity related to such crimes committed after 1992 by security forces and State-armed militias.

By sending a communication to the Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth about the reprisals suffered by Tahar and Bachir Bourefis' relatives, Alkarama invites the Special Rapporteur to call on the Algerian authorities to respect their international obligations, by recognising the crimes committed as well as their responsibility in this tragedy. They must initiate impartial and independent investigations to establish the fate of the missing, tell the victims' families the truth and do justice before it is too late.

It is with great sadness that Alkarama learned of the death of Mrs Boudehane, at the beginning of October, an admirable woman who fought a constant struggle for nearly 20 years to learn the truth about her husband and son, and offers its condolences to the Bourefis family.

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