Since Algerian « independence » in 1962, for which Kabylia nevertheless invested body and soul by consenting to immense sacrifices, believing it would find its happiness like that of the other peoples that make up Algeria, Kabylia has had nothing in return but hatred, contempt, and the intolerable denial of its own existence. Nothing has been spared to subjugate Kabylia and compel it to accept its dislocation by a system of forcible assimilation. Kabylia has suffered, alone and to the indifference of all, serious aggressions from the Algerian regime, which have been clear and direct, from 1963 until now, or more underhanded and permanent by the negation and falsification of history and identity.
The Algerian regime works constantly and relentlessly towards the dissolution of Kabylia through the entirety of its institutions, beginning with the fanatical Arabization of schools and the implementation of religious extremism; also, by the progressive occupation of its land by increasing police and army brigades, barracks, and prisons and now Kabyliamosques are proliferating in Kabylia. This is all in order to drown the Kabyle people on their own land, and in the end, to dissolve it into Arab-Islamism, terrorize it, muzzle it, and if necessary, master it, including through individual and targeted political crimes, or on a larger scale, by causing hundreds of casualties.
Kabylia is currently in the midst of one of the most dangerous periods in its history, which is marked by repression and harassment of peaceful political activists; economic sabotage, bureaucratic terrorism, and fiscal blackmail; the willful and premeditated sabotage of the ecosystem of the Kabyle territory, particularly by the regular burning of hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest.
The serious damage to freedom of expression and opinion that comes with accusations of intelligence with the enemy against any opponent or journalist who dares to challenge the dictatorial policy of the regime by the incarceration of Kabyles publicly assuming their diversity of faith or opinion, whether Christians or secularists, human rights activists, activists of the movement for autonomy of Kabylia, who are accused of breaching State security for having dared to publicly denounce the crimes it regularly commits. Under the terms of article 87 bis, by prohibiting gatherings, meetings, and conferences for Kabyle activists, who were nevertheless acting within the framework of Algerian laws.
Apart from Arab-Islamism, no other ideological-political has deployed so many political, judicial, and coercive means to definitively eradicate the Amazigh people, achieving the feat of imposing their own negation on them, in favor of a language, culture, and identity of replacement dressed in sanctified clothing, all while relegating the Amazigh identity of the peoples of North Africa to the lowest rank of “distant ancestors Arabized by the Islamic conquest”, as if religions “naturally” had the purpose of erasing the identities of peoples.
The injustice done to the prisoners of Kabyle activists can be seen in the indifference of the Algerians who sing “Arab national unity” all day long. This situation of quasi-generalized resignation and indifference comforts and encourages the despotism of the Algerian regime which further amplifies its repressive, oppressive, and criminal policies towards the Kabyle people who resist and fight against assimilation. Not supporting the activist Kabyle prisoners stems from a historical and inhuman injustice and, even more seriously, constitutes an immoral condoning of racism and institutionalized crime.
To let the peaceful political activists, and human rights activists, perish in prison, just because they are Kabyle, is an infamy that already brings shame upon pseudo-democrats and other humanists of various shapes, especially since several prisoners have already died in detention, in obscure conditions.
Rabah Arkam
Human rights violations: solidarity for Kabylia
