The LAREVAA NAT IRATEN affair represents a gigantic step forward in organized crime by the Algerian state, a sadistic crime crudely executed in full view of the world, in the presence of the police, in a police van, in front of a police station. All this to criminalize Kabylia and its population, who pose too many problems for the unchallenged affirmation of Arabness as the foundation of Algerian identity.
Terror, manipulation and corruption will not be able to overcome the strictest truth, known to all, for ever, even if a few polluted and servile people like Farid Alilat miserably support state terrorism.
Response from a Kabyle, Abane Mezian, to the article published by the newspaper Jeune Afrique.
Analysis of the article: “Algérie : Djamel Bensmail, autopsie d’un crime barbare”, published by Farid Alilat, October 24, 2023, in Jeune Afrique
By Meziane Abane, journalist
I have read with great attention the article published by Farid Alilat on October 24, 2023, in Jeune Afrique, on the murder of the young artist Djamel Bensmail, and I would like to make the following comments.
Before I start, I’d like to stress that I was shocked, like many people, by the way the article was written and by certain distorted facts reported in his paper. But I confess, I was also flabbergasted by his courage. Because it takes courage to write something like that. You can’t be a professional journalist, with all those years of experience, and be Kabyle to boot, so be very close to events and knowledgeable about the ins and outs of this kind of business, and write such a deception against the very people who suffer from this propaganda from the Algerian regime. All the more so as it (the regime) has used this affair to accuse the Kabyles and Kabylia of being terrorists and murderers. Many of them paid a high price and were sentenced to death for a crime they did not commit. Since then, Kabylia has experienced a wave of repression without equal.
I wouldn’t have said anything if Farid Alilat had been a journalist on duty. I wouldn’t have said anything if he were an aspiring journalist or one just starting out on his career. Maybe I wouldn’t have said anything if he was writing for an unknown medium. But here we’re talking about the prestigious Jeune Afrique, a French-language media outlet read not only in France but all over the world. As far as I’m concerned, this version of the Djamel Bensmail murder case is exactly what the racist regime in Algiers wants us to believe. That’s why I’ve decided to comment on this paper and respond, not as a friend, not as a Kabyle or as an activist. I do so as a journalist and colleague.
So, dear colleague from Jeune Afrique,
In journalism, we know that the hat is important. It sums up the paper. It must be attractive, and to be so, it must provide the most important information to encourage the reader to go on and read the rest. Your cap, dear colleague, is affirmative: “Falsely accused of starting fires in Kabylia, Djamel Bensmail was lynched and burned by the crowd. On appeal, the courts handed down 38 death sentences against the murderers. What really happened on August 11, 2021 in Larba Nath Irathen?” So, you’ve prepared your readers to read “the truth”. Except that in your paper, you didn’t mention a single source! No source is cited for such a sensitive and delicate matter? You said so yourself in your article: “This is a barbaric crime that has shocked people beyond our borders”. How can we deal with a case like this that has shocked the world without referring to the sources? The only quotation marks you opened, I recall, were those in which you repeat the statements of the deceased and those of the assailants as you call them. What’s more, these are statements you’ve gathered, as you point out, from videos posted on social networks. Is it a serious work? I don’t think so! I wonder how Jeune Afrique could publish an unsourced paper?
As a journalist, and I know I’m not the only one in the profession to think so, what you’ve written can’t be called an investigation, but a story in which you tell your own truth, not what really happened.
One other thing. One sentence in particular caught my attention. “And the videos recorded and broadcast that day will later be used to confound and arrest the murderers and perpetrators of lynching and torture”. You have in no way told the story of these 38 people sentenced to death. What’s more, you refer to them as “murderers” in your hat. “Justice handed down 38 death sentences against the murderers”. Except that you only mention a few of the names you think participated in the crime. What about others such as Youcef Gueddache, Mohand Laskri and Yacine Nekkache, to name but a few? Were they also involved? Not at all, dear colleague, for they were among the dozens of Kabylist militants arrested by the regime, tortured, raped and sentenced to death, even though they were not even at the scene of the crime. In your paper, you made no reference to this very serious fact, which will enable your readers in particular to better understand the ins and outs of this affair. When they read your hat, they’ll realize that these 38 people were all involved in the crime, and that they were identified thanks to the videos you mentioned in your article. As a result, all those on trial, including the Kabylian activists arrested and sentenced to death in this case, are accomplices.
As I read on, I came across several paragraphs that I find ambiguous and problematic. One of them is this: “For the past two days, almost no locality has been spared by these fires, which leave no respite for the local population. So much so that some people end up believing that they are of criminal origin”. It’s a shame to read such nonsense. How can this be, when you’re supposed to be informing yourself and others. Everyone will contradict you by telling you that it was the State itself that announced it through its Director of Forests for the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou. Indeed, the latter announced on national television, at the very start of the fires which ravaged the forests of the wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou and claimed over 200 lives, that the fires were of human origin and that they were started by arsonists. It’s not the people who ended up thinking that, as you say.
You could even go further to help your readers better understand the background to this affair by pointing out that the regime said this to prepare the ground and then accuse the MAK (Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia) of being behind the fires and the murder of Djamel Bensmail, which explains the arrest of its militants and sympathizers, accused in the same case. The Kabylists I’m talking about are now facing the death penalty, even though they have no connection with the crime in question.
I would remind you that the presence of a foreign vehicle in itself was not an event, as the whole wilaya of Tizi-Ouzou, the Larbaâ region in particular, was teeming with helpers and vehicles from all over Algeria. Perhaps this was what bothered the authorities, who thought they’d succeeded in isolating Kabylia. What’s more, you don’t cite any sources to back up these all-important details, which makes the story fragile.
Once again, you specify the fact that he was a foreigner to the town, and you make a focal point of it, as if to say, as the regime’s propaganda did, that the inhabitants of Larbaâ or Tizi-Ouzou are xenophobic and racist, whereas foreigners, as you call them, were everywhere in the region. They came from all over Algeria to help put out the fires, and no one experienced the racist or xenophobic acts you’re talking about. This in no way means that there are no racists or xenophobes in the region, but to generalize and focus on them is propaganda by the regime in Algiers.
Then you add: “Djamel Bensmail was at the scene and filmed the attack on the Clio with his cell phone. Did Aghiles and Chaabane spot him filming the ransacking of the Clio? Are they afraid that the video taken by Djamel could be used as evidence should the two passengers file a complaint? In any case, Djamel Bensmail was quickly identified as one of the vehicle’s passengers, its owner and, worst of all, as one of those who started the fires in Larba and the surrounding area. Having come to help, he was transformed from suspect to culprit without any form of trial. To escape the mob’s vindictiveness, he sought refuge with the police, who took him to the station. Delivered and saved? In reality, his ordeal is just beginning.”
Frankly, I don’t know what to say about this paragraph. A journalist’s suppositions become truths! Where’s the source that confirms this? These are your own assumptions, not assertions. What’s more, there’s an important element missing from this story. You say he took refuge with the police. So, in a way, he was saved by the police. How do you explain the media campaign that followed his arrest? All the media, Al Hayat in particular, were saying at the same time that the police had arrested the arsonist who set fire to Larbaa Nath Irathen. The information was relayed, including on social networks, even though the police van had not even arrived in Larbaâ Nath Irathen. It was the police who presented it to the population as an arsonist before dropping it and abandoning it in the middle of the crowd. This fact contradicts your thesis and proves that the police were complicit in Djamel Bensmail’s murder, as were the media who relayed the false information.
I was particularly taken aback when you went on to say: “Taken to task by youths accusing him of deliberately starting fires, Djamel was tortured inside the town’s police station before being burned and decapitated in a public square.” ………… “Inside the police station, dozens of individuals are now surrounding the van in which Djamel Bensmail is still under guard.” Two phrases are important in this account: “tortured inside the police station” and “under guard”. This is an outright lie. The van or truck was never inside, but outside the police station. Perhaps your intention was to say that the police did all they could to protect him and that these “cannibals” penetrated, like in a Bollywood film, the police precinct to extricate him from the police’s fragile, guardian hands in order to carry out the forbidden, the crime. If this isn’t the version of those who want to hide the truth from people, I don’t know what madman could dream up this scenario as if nobody had seen what happened.
What’s more, since you’ve seen all the videos, didn’t you wonder where the two men who stabbed him inside the police vehicle went? The very men in civilian clothes who handed him over to the assailants. We have their photos. They were never tried or brought to justice!
As for the rest of the article, I forced myself to read it in order to answer you, because the details of his murder were so poignant. Speaking of videos, I couldn’t see everything. The news of his assassination plunged me into great sadness, firstly for the horrible crime perpetrated, for all the victims of the fires, for Larbaâ Nath Irathen and for Kabylia as a whole. I realized that the authorities had succeeded and that Kabylia was about to experience another nightmare after the forest fires, which is exactly what happened.
I’m also sorry not to read in your article the statements made by Kabylians, in particular those of Mohand Laskri, known as Vakhouche, who was arrested and charged in this case and sentenced to death simply because he was a Kabylian. His image made the rounds on television. He was lynched by the media and told the judge that he had been tortured and raped in prison. He wasn’t the only one to suffer these abuses.
I think that to hide the truth about the murder of this young artist is to kill him a second time. I’m not even talking about the summary trial, where the justice system, as if there were one in Algeria, did not respect the presumption of innocence or ensure a fair trial for everyone.
Finally, I’d like to remind you that I’ve never read you talk about Kabylia, after all it has endured at the hands of a regime that has assumed its racism and has lashed out at it, its elite and its citizens for over three years. The only time you did it was to put her down. I’ve also not forgotten your praise for a certain Abdelkader Dehbi, Boumedienne’s former secretary, who you say helped you with your book on Bouteflika, but who was one of the masterminds behind the Kabyle zero project. You have written in praise of this anti-Kabylian racist at a time when Kabylia was being mourned and wounded by people like him and their fascist and negationist policies, particularly at the time of Gaïd Salah.
I’ll stay here. I’m not accusing you of anything. I’m just expressing my deep disappointment. And I hope that light will one day be shed on this affair and that anyone who had nothing to do with the crime will be cleared and released.
Link to Jeune Afrique article:
A text by Samy Idekaren in reaction to Farid Alilat’s despicable article on the “barbarians of Larev3a Nat Iraten”, whom Algerian justice sentenced to death on the basis of an entirely empty file, as empty as the conscience, sense of justice and humanity of the murderers, bastards and journalists who are part of this diabolical entity called “Algeria”.
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The Alilat family has struck again. After Djamel Alilat, who negligently accused the Kabyles of being responsible for the murderous fires that once again struck Kabylia in the summer of 2023, ignoring the numerous testimonies to the dropping of inflammable capsules by the Algerian army, ignoring evidence of arson caused by white phosphorus sprayed by the Algerian regime, and finally ignoring the prohibition imposed by the local relays of the Algerian government on the Kabyles to clear the weeds around their homes, here comes his brother Farid Alilat, his brother Farid Alilat, in an article published in Jeune Afrique on October 24, 2023, attacked the innocent Kabyles of Larvaa Nat Yiraten, setting himself up as a prosecutor to convict these young people of the murder of a young man in August 2021, even before their masquerade trial had taken place.
We have overlooked one impact of the closure of Algerian newspaper titles previously heralds of the free and independent press, such as Liberté. Clearly short of funds, some of these newspapers’ journalists are in a hurry to pledge their allegiance to the Algerian government by serving them soup on the backs of innocent Kabyles. And these two journalist brothers have thus become servile stooges of a corrupt government, writing articles against Kabylia and its free inhabitants.
You are unforgivable Farid Alilat because, having been sentenced on May 24 2005 by the Algerian state for “offending the Head of State”, Bouteflika at the time, you know the extent to which Algerian justice is an instrumental justice. And yet, in just under 20 years, the nature of the Algerian regime has not changed. Rather than softening, it has hardened, imposing a leaden blanket on Kabylia, which sees its men and women locked up by the hundreds for crimes of opinion. If you were a journalist worthy of the name, you would have denounced this state of affairs instead of lashing out at innocent and harmless victims, unlike your sponsors in the Algerian regime. But you agreed to give up your ethics, honor and dignity for a few trivial benefits by going so far as to write a biography according to his family, full of inaccuracies, betraying the trust of those close to Idir who had helped to pass on to you precious documents and information to make a success of this undertaking, which has turned into a shipwreck for your book and a disgrace for you.