President Abdelaziz Bouteflika lifted Algeria’s 19-year state of emergency in February and announced legal and political reforms amidst increasing economic unrest, pro-reform street protests, and worker strikes. However, at this writing these measures had not given Algerians the freedom to exercise their rights of expression, assembly, and association.
Security forces and armed groups continued to enjoy broad impunity for atrocities committed during the civil war of the 1990s. The state offered compensation to families of persons forcibly disappeared in the 1990s, but not answers about their fate. Armed groups continued to carry out deadly attacks, mostly targeting state security forces.
Freedom of Assembly
January 2011 saw several days of violent protests and rioting in several cities, triggered by price hikes on basic food items. As the riots subsided, Algerians—inspired by the stirrings in Tunisia and Egypt—on January 22 began attempting to hold weekly peaceful pro-reform demonstrations in Algiers, the capital. Large deployments of police were usually on hand and either prevented the protests from getting started or confined them to small spaces. Larger-scale labor protests also took place, including a march by thousands of communal guards in Algiers on March 7 demanding more pay.
