While it may not be a “moral obligation”, restoring the truth is in no way a “legal obligation” for AFP.
This is what AFP’s legal department told the APK Collective in a letter sent by recorded delivery, when it expressed the view that AFP was far too light-hearted in disseminating the serious and monumental lies of the racist and criminal states which it voluntarily echoes.
On November 10, the APK sent AFP a right of reply concerning the politico-judicial affair known as the “Djamel Bensmail affair“. Choosing to maintain their misleading dispatch on the children of larev3a Nat Iraten, they categorically refused to publish the right of reply.
Here is the full reply to Agence France-Presse produced by the Action pour la Kabylie collective on November 10, 2023, which was not published by the same agency.
Dear Sir/ Madam
As Kabyle citizens of the Diaspora in France, we have an obligation and a moral duty to question you about a very serious political-judicial affair which your agency has echoed by publishing a dispatch which repeats information emanating directly from the official Algerian State Agency (APS).
It was a seriously misleading piece of information, repeated by all the French newsrooms, which put the lives of young political activists at stake.
We feel it’s important to point out that the repressive situation prevailing in Algeria, with imprisonment, judicial supervision and bans on leaving the country, makes it impossible for any journalist to deal with any information properly, especially in such a serious and sensitive case, which is taking place in Kabylia.
In accordance with article 133 of the law on freedom of the press (law of July 29 1881), we are legitimately sending you this right of reply, which we would ask you to publish in view of the very serious harm that this “information” is causing to the lives of young political activists. They are being tried and sentenced to death for a crime in which it has been materially proven that they could in no way have participated. Yet these political activists are sentenced to death on appeal, in defiance of justice and the indisputable reality of the facts.
We draw your attention to the fact that, apart from the Algerian government’s official statement in the press confirming the criminalization of Kabyle political activists, no press statement by the lawyers’ collective has been made public on this serious and sensitive matter.
Even more serious is the fact that defense lawyers are themselves being prosecuted for defending certain clients. We would also like to point out that this eminently political trial has been the subject of much criticism from the lawyers handling the activists’ cases. It has also been heavily criticized by international human rights organizations.
We hereby wish to bring the necessary nuance to the treatment of information that is as sensitive as it is prone to manipulation. This information is the sole responsibility of the Algerian authorities, who have been roundly condemned by human rights organizations for their obstruction of citizens’ freedom of speech and action, arbitrary imprisonment of journalists, including Mohamed Mouloudj (Liberté newspaper) and Ihasane El Qadhi (Radio M, Maghreb Emergent), and massive use of the justice system for repressive purposes, including against defense lawyers.
With regard to the trial in question, we cite as an example Amnesty International’s press release of January 9, 2023 denouncing “collective death sentences marked by unfair trials and allegations of torture in Algeria”.
In view of the extremely worrying human rights situation and the extremely tense political situation in Algeria, particularly and even more so in Kabylia, we cannot leave such vital information on a subject whose complexity alone calls for caution.
As a reminder, we’re talking about the “fatal lynching” of a young man in a public place, in the presence of the police, in a police van and at the gates of a police station; all of which took place in Kabylia, whose particular context is widely known.
The unqualified reiteration of the court’s decision to impose the death penalty on the “38 murderers” puts the lives of dozens of political activists at stake, even though their innocence has been materially proven. This is a “Dreyfusian” affair, to which we cannot confine information to the official declarations of the Algerian justice system, which confirmed, on appeal, the death sentence of perfectly innocent people for the sole reason that they were political activists, and even though their absence from the scene of the crime is a proven fact.
“It is absolutely shameful that the Algerian authorities should use the lynching of a man to prosecute their critics and members of the Movement for Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK). This obstinate repression is a serious violation of the rights to freedom of expression and association, but also of the right to life”.
These are the words of Amna Guellali, Amnesty International‘s Deputy Director for North Africa and the Middle East, on this very serious matter. She clearly describes a situation that runs counter to all the official statements of Algerian judicial institutions, which have handed down very seriously arbitrary decisions to sentence political activists to death on the basis of empty files; and this according to all the statements made by their lawyers prior to the appeal trial; lawyers who have since, and to this day, made no press statement on the outcome of the case, nor any comment on the appeal verdict.
We’d like to provide you with a number of links relating to human rights in Algeria, as well as the historical and political context shaping the Algerian state’s policy towards Kabylia. Kabylia has posed a recurring problem of democratic, cultural and identity-based demands since 1962. It is precisely this context that biases all official information from the Algerian state concerning Kabylia; a bias that has become much more pronounced with the advent of Kabyle autonomist and independence claims, which have become increasingly assertive since the Black Spring in Kabylia (2001-2005).
This latest wave of demonization of Kabylia, which the official Algerian media have publicly described as “terrorist”, aims to delegitimize the so-called “separatist” Kabylian political currents, as well as the democratic, secular and Berber struggle waged by generations of political activists, from whom we and the “death row inmates” are descended.
Thanking you in advance for your kind attention, please accept, Madam, Sir, the assurance of our highest consideration.
For Collectif Action pour la Kabylie
The websites of Amnesty and Human rights watch have been removed by these human rights organizations.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/%E2%80%A6/algeria-mass-death-sentences%E2%80%A6/ Article deleted
https://www.hrw.org/%E2%80%A6/algerie-liberer-un-militant-ayant%E2%80%A6 Article deleted
France 24 https://www.france24.com/%E2%80%A6/20210901-tunisie-le-sort-du%E2%80%A6 Article deleted