The UN Human Rights Committee has therefore just accepted the complaint lodged at Geneva on 31 March 2003 in the name of the president of the dissolved FIS.

The Committee considered in particular the fact that Mr. Abbassi Madani had been judged in 1992 by a military tribunal for damage to State security and the good functioning of the national economy without the Algerian state having then justified recourse to this court or shown that ordinary civil courts or “other alternative forms of special or high-security courts” were not competent to undertake the trial.” The committee concluded that the trial and sentencing of Abbassi Madani by a military court constituted a violation of article 14 of the Covenant.

The Committee noted that during his secret detention, Ali Benhadj did not have access to a lawyer and was unable to contest the legality of his detention. There was thus no posssibility of seeking recourse to know whether this detention was compatible with the Covenant. Given that the Algeria authorities have not provided satisfactory explanations, the Committee concluded that the State party had violated the Covenant (paragraph 4, article 9).

Article 10 of the Covenant stipulates that “all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.” But, in the case of Ali Benhadj, the Committee finds this principle to have been violated by the Algerian state: Ali Benhadj has suffered brutal treatment, has been detained many times in the death row section, has been detained in inhumane conditions, notably in a cell where he could neither stand up nor lie down straight. The Algerian authorities have provided no explanations on this matter.

The Human Rights Committee concluded that the Algerian state “is required to provide Mr. Ali Benhadj with a useful remedy” and to “take the appropriate measures to ensure that he receives appropriate compensation, including in the form of reparations.”

Finally, the UN body declared that the Algerian state “is required to take measures to prevent similar violations from taking place again in future” and demands that the State party provide it within 90 days with information on the measures taken to put this decision into effect, inviting it to make it public.

Background:

Ali Benhadj (born 16 December 1956) is co-founder and vice president of the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), a party registered by the Algerian government in 1989. On the eve of the June 1991 legislative elections, and following the FIS victory in the local elections of 1990, the government planned to adopt a new electoral law which received unanimous condemnation from Algeria's opposition parties. In protest against this law, FIS decided to organise a general strike along with sit-ins in public places. After several days of strikes and marches, the leadership of FIS and the government agreed to put an end to this protest movement in exchange for a coming revision of the electoral law. However, on 3 June 1991, the head of the government was forced to step down and public places were taken by force by the Algerian army, which opened fire on demonstrators.

On 29 June 1991, Ali Benhadj was arrested by agents of the DRS (Intelligence and Security Department) at the public television office, where he had gone to express the position of his party. He was brought before an examining magistrate by a military court accused of “harming State security” and “the good functioning of the national economy”. Ali Benhadj’s lawyers, who had denounced the strictly political nature of the trial from the start, contested the well-foundedness of the proceedings, carried out before a military jurisdiction not competent to try civilians, and the regularity of the investigation, carried out by a military magistrate linked to the prosecution.

During the first round of legislative elections on 26 December 1991, a majority of seats were taken by FIS candidates, and on the day after the official results, the military prosecutor informed the defense lawyers of his intention to end proceedings against Ali Benhadj. But on 12 January 1992, the President of the Republic “stepped down”, and the elections were annulled. Then, on 9 February, a state of emergency was declared; on 4 March 1992, FIS was banned; and on 15 July 1992, the Blida military tribunal condemned Ali Benhadj, in absentia, to 12 years' criminal imprisonment. The appeal was rejected by the Supreme Court on 15 February 1992, making the penal sentence final.

During his imprisonment, Ali Benhadj was made to undergo many forms of detention and treated differently depending on whether he was being considered as a political spokesman or not. He was detained in the Blida military prison from July 1991 to April 1993, where he suffered physical brutality. He was then transferred to the Tizi-Ouzou civilian prison, where he was placed in total solitary confinement in the death row section for many months. He was then put back in the Blida military prison until political negotations hit an impasse, when he was transferred, on 1 February 1995, to a barracks in the extreme south of Algeria. There he was detained in secret for four months and six days in difficult conditions, in a tiny cell, without ventilation or any possibility of hygiene. Following new negotations with General Zeroual, he was transferred to Djenane Al Mithaq in Algiers, a State residence normally reserved for dignitaries visiting Algeria.

After the failure of these new negotiations, he was transferred on the same day to a secret detention centre in the extreme south of the country, probably a barracks. He was shut up inside a cell in which he could neither lay down nor stand up straight, and kept in total isolation for two years. He tried many hunger strikes, brutally suppressed by his jailers.

In autumn 1997 he was transferred to Blida military prison, where he continued to be detained in secret for two more years. For a total of four years, his family did not know where he was detained, or even whether he was alive.

In March 1999, his family finally received news of him and was allowed to visit. Mr. Ali Benhadj nonetheless continued to be ill-treated at the military prison, notably following the letters he sent to the President of the Republic.

He was freed on 2 July 2003 after having served the whole of his term.

Just before being freed, he was asked to renounce all political activity and all his civic rights and to sign a document to this effect; he refused to do so.

Going further, the day after his liberation, an official joint communiqué by the military authorities and the Minister of the Interior informed him, through the press, that he was banned from exercising his most elementary rights on the pretext that this ban was further to his sentence.

Mr. Ali Benhadj has told his lawyer that he reserves, among other things, the right to once again call on the UN Human Rights Committee regarding these new violations by the Algerian authorities of his civil and political rights.