MEETING BETWEEN KABYLE DIPLOMACY AND THE TEAM OF U.S. SENATOR TIM KAINE

MEETING BETWEEN KABYLE DIPLOMACY AND THE TEAM OF U.S. SENATOR TIM KAINE
WASHINGTON D.C. (SIWEL) – On Thursday June 29, 2023, a videoconference meeting was held between the Kabyle delegation represented by President Ferhat Mehenni and the office of U.S. Senator Tim Kaine represented by his legislative correspondent for Foreign Affairs.
After taking stock of the catastrophic situation of the Algerian regime’s failure to respect human rights in Kabylia, the President of the Provisional Kabyle Government in Exile (Anavad) and the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK) was keen to convey to the Democratic Senator, a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the upper house of the US Congress, the grievances of hundreds of peaceful Kabyle political activists languishing arbitrarily in Algerian jails.
Having already addressed Kabylia’s right to self-determination, President Ferhat Mehenni, who met several American politicians and senior officials at the end of April and beginning of May during his North American tour, reiterated that the future Kabyle state would be an ally of the free world, a diametrically opposed vision of the Algerian state, which in mid-June formalized its status as a vassal country of Russia.
In July 2021, Senator Tim Kaine co-authored a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in which several U.S. Senators urged the Biden administration to address issues of religious freedom in Algeria, highlighting the use of Algeria’s blasphemy law to imprison Christians whom the Algerian government accuses of insulting Islam.
Tim Kaine, as Hillary Clinton’s running mate, was the Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election.
– In 2013, he was elected Virginia State Senator, re-elected in 2018.
– Between 2006 and 2010: Governor of Virginia.