Eleven Kabyles including a nephrologist and one from the Chawi people, arrested in Algiers on June 21, 2019 for brandishing a Amazigh flag, were put under arrest warrant by an obsequious judge. As the offense is not provided for by the Penal Code, they are charged for “undermining national unity” and punishable by death. The Algerian military, which are the top authorities in Algeria, criminalizes heroism and dignity.
This very serious act raises indignation among all Amazigh peoples.The city of La3ziv n Za3mum (Kabylie) has just organized a night walk to express their anger against the military power and their solidarity with the defendants.The diversionary maneuver attempted by the Algerian military command to put an end to their protest ( The Algerian military is known by its Machiavellian in the field of mass manipulation) by the street that is in its 18th week, was to declare the war of the flags, by the voice of their lige man, General Gaid Salah.
The flag most targeted by this declaration of war is the Kabylian flag, the symbol of aspiration for the independence of the Kabylian people. The presence of the Kabylian flag in the demonstrations is so challenging for the Algerian authorities that they had finally accepted, reluctantly and for some time only, that the demonstrators brandish the Amazigh flag in place of the new Kabylian national emblem. It must be remembered that the Amazigh flag was, until the appearance of the Kabyle flag(April 2015), was the symbol of the Kabylian independence activists. Apparently, make the flag wave in the streets of Algiers or somewhere else reminds the military, politically uneducated, the permanence of the Kabylian independence spirit. The ban of the flag is for all Kabyles, a casus belli and a racist anti-Kabyle act.
Anavad’s president, Ferhat Mehenni, condemns the general Gaid Salah’s remarks and the deposition of the victims of the flag war. He demands the immediate and unconditional release of the arrested youths. Mehenni calls on the UN Human Rights Commission, the European Union and the African Union, to seize these serious attacks on the rights of the Kabyle from the Algerian military. He alerts the international community and the UN bodies about the human rights violations against the people of Algeria in general and the Kabyle people in particular.
Exile on 24/06/2019 Mr. Ferhat Mehenni, President of the MAK (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia) and President of Anavad (Provisional Government Kabyle in exile)