Rights Group Condemns Algeria for Mass Death Sentences

Facts

• Amnesty International on Monday reportedly called for Algeria to annul the death sentences handed to 49 people last November for the 2021 lynching of 38-year-old Djamel Ben Ismail, saying the "penalty is never justifiable."
• At the height of the August forest fires which claimed the lives of at least 90 people nationwide in 2021, dozens of people attacked Ben Ismail and set him on fire outside a police station in the Tizi Ouzou region as he turned himself in on hearing he was accused of arson.
• On top of the 49 capital punishment sentences ending a moratorium that Algeria has maintained since 1993, Amnesty claimed that five other people were condemned to death in absentia. 28 others were sentenced to between two and 10 years, while another 17 were acquitted.
• Amnesty also argued that the cases were "marred by fair trial violations and torture claims," with at least six defendants allegedly being prosecuted for their political affiliations. The defendants are reportedly appealing their convictions but a date has not yet been fixed.
• Authorities have blamed the fires, which were spurred by a heatwave, on "arsonists," criminals, and the independence movement in the ethnic Berber-majority region of Kabylie, which stretches along the Mediterranean coast east of Algiers.
• At the time of the fires, the Kabyle was the last bastion of the so-called "hirak" pro-democracy movement that helped bring down long-serving president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019.

Sources: Lorientlejour, Al Jazeera, Newarab, Star, and Guardian.

Narratives

• Narrative A, as provided by Amnesty. The death penalty is an immoral and unnecessary punishment no matter the crime committed. Furthermore, these defendants received far from a fair trial. Many were also targeted due to their connections to the movement for the self-determination of Kabyle. An arbitrary and ruthless justice system is not good for political freedom or society.
• Narrative B, as provided by MEMO. After many of these defendants dragged Ismail from his car, beat him in the street, and lit him on fire, the prosecution justifiably called for the death penalty against those convicted. An abhorrent act of vigilante justice like this — against a man who it turns out was innocent all along — has no place in a civilized society, and only the harshest of penalties is deserved.