CMA Tizi-Ouzou

Upon arrival at Algiers airport Wednesday the 29 of October 2008, thirty-five members of a delegation of representatives from moroccan Berbers associations, among them Rashid RAHA and Me Adgherni (President of the Democratic Party Amazigh of Morocco). They were arrested by Algerian security while they attend to participate to the World Amazigh Congress which should be held simultaneously in Meknes and Tizi-Ouzou from October 30 to November 2.

Maintained in the international zone of the airport, the passports of Berber activists were confiscated. They still refuse to be driving in a retention area, reject any offer of food, determined to start a hunger strike. They will hold this night their federal council as recommended by their associations. They will also deliver tomorrow the list of the officially elected federal members from Morocco to their counterparts in Tizi-Ouzou.

Other delegations are expected as early as Thursday from Libya, Tunisia, Spain, France, Niger ...

While several NGOs were able to go on site, the Algerian government for which this "coming of Moroccan is illegal" chose robust methods, and closed all lines between Algeria and Morocco until Saturday.

For its part, the delegation responsible to unblock the situation composed of members of Amusnaw, Algerian lawyers, journalists and delegates of the citizens' movement including Belaïd Abrika were turned back at the entrance of the airport by a police armada worthy of a anti-terrorist operation. The activists immediately expressed their outrage by calling for the intervention of the prosecutor and Ambassador of Morocco.

We learned at the same time that the two hostels home Tizi-Ouzou and Tizi Rached had been requisitioned by the authorities.

Police raid on the "quartier des Genets" where the Congress will be dedicated to the memory of Matoub Lounès, can not be excluded.

The excessive and unusual posters "Knights of Islam at the Culture house" (sponsored by the state) that flood the city of Tizi-Ouzou have elevated the tension.

All this case shows again the level of tolerance of the Algerian dictatorship in respect of expression, freedom of movement of the Berber peoples in North Africa.

Adaptated from kabyle.com