This document, which cost the journalist Arezki Aït-Larbi an arrest warrant and a judgement by default to six months’ imprisonment without remission in 1997, was published in the weekly paper L’Evénement (N° 162 – Week of the 2 to April 8th, 1994).

Revelations of a former conscience prisoner:

Lambèse: the medieval Alcatraz

July 5th, 1985, Algeria celebrated the 23rd anniversary of its independence. The martyrs’ children that formed non-legalized associations, because independent from the political machinery of the regime and the unique party (FLN), decided to celebrate this day by putting sprays of flowers on the squares of the Martyrs, outside official festivities. The authorities intervened and decided to put an end to this new form of “subversion” : several martyrs’ children were arrested in Tizi-Ouzou, Algiers, Chlef and Ténès. After being presented in the public prosecutor’s room of the State Security Court of Médéa, they were sent to the prison of Berroughia. To have stood up for them and denounced the scandal, founding members of the first Algerian League of defence of Human Rights, created some days beforehand, and militants of the Berber Cultural Movement were arrested and presented in front of the same exception jurisdiction.

After a memorable trial that lasted from 15th to 19th December 1985 in front of the State Security Court, the verdict was brought in: prison terms ranging from 6 months to 3 years was pronounced. The condemned, who were 22 of them, were then scattered over several penitentiary establishments. Six of them, who were condemned to 3 prison years, would be transferred later to the sinister Tazoult-Lambèse Penitentiary to undergo a “special program of re-education”.

I was among these six condemned ones who would discover this underdeveloped Alcatraz. I spent 11 months (from January 02nd, 1986 to December 02nd, 1986) in this world outside time and space. The following document is a letter that I addressed, on March 07th, 1987, after my transfer to the prison of Constantine, to Mr. Mohamed Chérif Kherroubi, who had just succeeded Mr. Boualem Baki at the head of the ministry of Justice. Despite the insistence of several friends, I hesitated to publish this letter or to give any testimony on a traumatizing “experience”. Doubtless, for the sake of not cultivating any syndrome of “new Moudjahid”.

Nevertheless after the “spectacular” escape of 900 prisoners last month, I got the conviction that it was necessary to testify and establish a relation between the means implemented to attempt to break the militants of democracy and human rights, and the complicities that allowed terrorists to escape from a penitentiary renowned for its imperviousness. In other words, do not the medieval methods and the hatchet men used “to re-educate” the democrats already constitute the beginnings of the fundamentalist sympathies that were going to prove themselves, some years later, to be fearsome complicities?

This is why I decided today to testify by publishing this letter integrally. Facts are reported. Some of these facts are still verifiable today. Names are equally quoted. If the publication of this letter had to give rise to elaborate explanations or disclaimers, let their eventual authors know that their reactions are welcome. By: Arezki aït-larbi

Minister,

With an excessive optimism or maybe a big innocence dose, I admit to have interpreted your arrival to the department of Justice as a sign of the will to put an end or, at least, to pay some attention to practices that risked sullying seriously the dignity of a country and the credibility of its institutions. It seems to me useless to recall you the motivations of our condemnation, or those that dictated my transfer – with five of my friends - to Lambèse where “to get us rehabilitated”. Every observer with a minimum objectivity will not have failed to measure the consequences that thin skinned instincts can generate when they serve as political approach. To assert oneself as Berber-speaking and democrat has become a “heresy” that hold us up very naturally as fixation abscesses (diversion tactics) of intolerance and the ambient ostracism. Your predecessor had dramatically illustrated this spirit that led, first and before all, to the disrepute of an institution of which the theoretical mission is respect of the law. Nevertheless, if your different declarations, widely reported by the national press, aimed at announcing reforms necessary to the dramatic position of the penitentiary condition of which you inherited, it is worth noting, that one year after you had taken office, Lambèse is still living in the continuity of “trespassing” that challenge daily the most elementary values of every society governed by the law.

Minister,

Justified or arbitrary, a prison sentence is supposed to be a physical liberty deprivation, subjected to the control of the law. If trespassing inhering in the maintenance of a necessary discipline inside the prisons are able, to certain a extent, to be considered as inevitable, it is necessary to agree that, when acts contrary to the law and to the most elementary moral are set up as “rehabilitation programs”, this is a matter for a pathology that every patriot will have to denounce, before the whole body of the society is eaten away by the gangrene.

Saying that Lambèse is a medieval concentration camp is unfortunately neither a verbal slip-up, nor a delirium of some “marginal element longing for the Gulag”. Our stay among the relegates had nevertheless revealed the extent of the damages that can generate hate and a sclerotic mentality of which respect of the law and the moral does not constitute at all the principal virtue. “Political offence not having any place in Algeria”, this is not a blind chance if, by means of a well unique reasoning, we had become “special ones” that will be treated in the same manner as the worst criminals of the common law. This is not a chance either if the pillars of this sinister old people’s home tell with pride the lists of all the political prisoners than they had to persecute. Some of these former political prisoners, whose commitment for the independence of the country does not need to be proved, occupy today an undisputable place in the history of the national movement. This is not a chance at last if the sad “career” of these “re-educators” began at the service of the colonial penitentiary administration, before their reconversion, today, to enthusiastic FLN militants, whose destructive “competence” and “engagement” are worth being held up as an example. The facts being undeniable, the speeches cannot conceal indefinitely the sad reality of an “establishment” devoted to the physical and moral destruction of all those who refuse to abdicate their citizenship.

Minister,

1- What would you say of the hundreds of prisoners who spent the winter 85/86 with 3 covers as all bedding, without bench and heating? “We can’t afford it!” will say the administration staff of Lambèse. This will not prevent it to proceed to the distribution of new covers to all the prisoners, a day before your visit (postponed, it methinks). Doubtless, it was just for the settings of a televised mise-en-scene.

2- What would you say of a visiting room, where the detainees crowd together in several tens, separated from their families with two grids, between which circulate custodians who do not mind interfering coarsely in attempts of strictly domestic discussions? I saw the children of the singer Ferhat Mehenni, whose the eldest child has not yet reached14, trying vainly to hear some reassuring words of their father, or to catch sight of him. Is this the best impression to give of their country to these children whose only “crime” was to have a father who decided to assume fully his citizenship? Even this “spectacle” did not succeed to cause the least remorse in the conscience of the jailers, who took up position behind “Mister Sallat’s directives”. As for the latter, he will withdraw his responsibility by invoking “the security services that conceived the plans of the visiting room”.

3- What would you say of these “administrators” who got used to do their weekly shopping in the baskets carried by the prisoners’ families? In contempt of all kinds of regulation, some commodities were “seized” according to the scarcities in the market. As a significant example: two weeks before Ramadan 86, a short note emanating from the detention head invited the prisoners to send for, (exceptionally for this period), coffee and black pepper, particularly rare in those days. Several quintals of coffee and tens of kilos of pepper, brought by the families, had to be “seized” and went to an “unknown” destination. According to the very opinion of some custodians, who were honest or doubtless frustrated of not to have had their part of the loot, this scenario proceeds from an annual tradition since already a long time. To my protests in front of this abuse of power doubled over by a characterized misappropriation, the main guard will reply: “You ask me to respect the law, while the summit of the hierarchy gives the example of its violation. Here, in Lambèse, one only law is valid: mine!” I must admit, to his disposal, that the cynicism of his reasoning is not devoid of certain logic.

4- What would you say of the penitentiary manpower used for private interests? Sumptuous villas were constructed by the sweat of the prisoners’ brow, without any compensation. Other prisoners were employed as domestic servants in the houses of some persons in charge.

5- What do you think about the ban of the Berber language in the visiting room? To have refused to submit to this new demonstration of hate and ostracism, our families had been pushed back twice, in January 1986, without having seen us. The judge entrusted with the implementation of the penalties and the public prosecutor of Batna had to relay to give a lawful character to this forfeiture, by arguing that the only allowed languages – by whom?- are Arabic and French! The Berber language can be perceived only as an unnatural excrescence, for “it is a creation of the colonialism!”. The colonialism being obviously easy to blame, even a posteriori each one tries to make it up as he can. If the administration had ended up to yield in front of our determination, I have just heard that our friend Abboute Arezki, for whom the hell of Lambèse is not finished, had been subjected recently to 3 days’ imprisonment, for having communicated with his spouse in his mother tongue.

6- What would you say of this prison doctor (Dr Lounès), who did come only once a week for «examining“more than 150 patients in less than 2 hours? And what about the medicines expired since a long time, and that were administered without hesitation to the patients when they had luck to accede to medical cares? At the sight of the still visible wounds on my back, wounds due to the physical cruelty to which I had been subjected as early as my arrival, Dr Lounès advised me to obey my custodians, to avoid in the future similar misadventure, and refused to deliver me the certificate I asked for. For having protested against these practices contrary to the deontology and to medical ethics, I was prescribed 5 days’ prison in the dungeon reserved for prisoners sentenced to death, totally naked, in January 1986, with a bit of stale bread and a half litre of water every 24 hours, as all meal. And I had to consider myself happy for, I do not know how in the world, I was spared the every two days frozen shower and the morning beating up, which were part of the”normal“program of punishment. I had to understand later the seriousness of my”crime" : Dr Lounès was the son-in-law of an influential personage in the public prosecutor’s room of Batna. A thing which was very enough for him as a professional competence and a moral guarantee.

7- What would you say of these prisoners that had been kept in irons, without food or water during several days, for having been caught, during Ramadan 86, smoking discreetly in their individual cell? What, in other countries and under other skies was called “inquisition”, became in our country, by means of a mystifying euphemism, “religious re-education”.

8- What you would say of these young demonstrators from Constantine, arrested in last November, condemned in conditions more than questionable and who had to undergo the most degrading physical cruelty and humiliation as soon as they arrived to Lambèse? For “ex-convicts”, we saw only a big number of secondary school pupils who were not more than 16 years old! Convinced to be again in a police station, of which most of them were still bearing marks of their passage from there, one of them asked, between two sobs: “When will you at last take us to prison?”, believing doubtless to see the end of his nightmare there. In front of my protests, the detention head will invoke the enthusiasm of his underlings, before promising that such events would not happen again any more. Effectively, the second convoy of prisoners, who arrived some days later, would be massacred behind closed doors!

9- What would you say of the prisoner Haroun Mohamed (sentenced for life by the State Security Court in 1976), who had had to undergo all sorts of humiliations and inhuman treatments for having, it seems, sent a letter to the international press in which he would have reported his detention conditions? His last nightmare was a total isolation in a dungeon, during 15 months. He left it mentally ill in September 1986. As I protested for a necessary medical and psychiatric supervised care for him, I was told in a growl: “This is what happens to the strong-minded persons who meddle in things that do not concern them. Notice to amateurs! For, in Lambèse, those who refuse to bend, we break them.”

10- What would you say of those patients left to die at night, in their cell for lack of medical care? Unnaturally, a sergeant, attracted by the cries of a dying prisoner, advised him “not to forget the Chahada, to die Muslim!” The next day, he was “Muslim”. That is to say, he died. As I protested, I was said cynically that “this is the only way to distinguish a true patient of a faker!” Another “faker”, BOUDELLAL Bouziane, yet known diabetic, had to succumb in the general indifference, following a hypoglycaemic coma, without having received the least care.

11- What would you say of an infirmary reserved to the “economical offences” and other non sick prisoners but “having the means”, while those who suffer are admitted only exceptionally? As I protested, I was proposed a comfortable room! Being myself not faced with the problem in terms of hotel business, I had to decline the offer and remain in my icy cell, among the relegate prisoners.

12- What would you say of these prisoners who had to succumb to physical cruelty? How many true assassinations were disguised in “natural death” or in “suicide”? This is but an insisting rumour peddled by the prisoners and confirmed by certain custodians. I have unfortunately no proof to speak about the matter with certainty.

13- What would you say of the prisoner AÏSSAOUI Brahim whose two feet were amputated following a gangrene due to a long stay in a humid prison, totally nude, in February 1986? In front of my indignation, the administration will end up to admit that “if the dungeon exists, it must serve to something though!” And to add: “You are here for a noble cause (!), why do you defend criminals?” Having been the eyewitness of the clinic evolution of this gangrene that had to result in the mutilation, I was spared the thesis of the “prisoner who injured his two feet (!) while trying to cut his nails with a metal piece!”, an explanation that had been as well advanced.

14- What would you say of another young prisoner– Boudine Ahmed - deprived of a part of the brain pan, the scalp resting directly upon the meninx, as a result of a bar blow from a custodian of the sinister “reception committee”? As its name does not indicate it, the “welcome Committee” is the group of custodians in charge of receiving the prisoners at their arrival, with blows of iron bars and pipes to give them a foretaste of what will be their detention. We had had to make acquaintance with it the day of our transfer to Lambèse, on January 02nd, 1986, and the singer Ferhat Mehenni will keep the relapses of it for the remainder of his days, for his nose was broken.

Minister,

Believing that it was a matter of intolerable practices, resulting from the perversion of the subordinates assured thus far by impunity, rather than from a system more elaborated, more codified and more supported at a superior level, we brought certain of these misdeeds to the attention of the general former manager of the application of the penalties, Mr SALLAT, through our families, and his assistant who came to Lambèse, on March 1986, in order to make sure that our “re-education” was going on correctly.

Adding hypocrisy to forfeiture, Mr Sallat will settle for one of such denials of his, of which he has the secret, seeing in our approach “the result of a delirium of some”marginal element longing for the Gulag!“He will boast, once alone, of being the national hero that was going to break”these Berberists, gravediggers of national unity! Phantasm , now well known, by all the latecomers of a war who found in our case the godsend of a new crusade, that would allow them to remake for themselves a patriotic virginity, and conceal thus the defect of a past that is particularly less glorious. As for his assistant, he will reply coldly to one of us: “We are in Algeria and not in America. And then they are only prisoners!!” As if Algeria were cursed, a thing which would justify the violation of the values which constitute the foundation of any civilized society. As if the respect of a minimum of legality was an “imperialist” perversion against which we should protect ourselves from. As if, at last, the horror of a punished crime could justify another one that does not risk to be punished, because wrapped with the coat of the “justice”.

Disgusted with so many cruelties that took place, I remind you, the Algeria of the years 80, outraged by the resignation and the anaesthesia of the consciences at such a high level of the hierarchy, I decided, in October 1986, to refer the matter by letter to the local persons in charge of Lambèse (the director and the detention head), focusing particularly on:

The seriousness of the acts (misappropriations, corruption, tortures and mutilation of prisoners …) that involved their penal responsibility. To take refuge behind “the weak level of the custodians” and “the Mister Sallat’s directives” was not a lawfully valid argument, even though it contributed to give them cheaply a clear conscience.
“The law was above all”, at least officially.
“The group mind that prevailed and the drastic measures taken to guarantee the closed door of such horrors risked, in the future, not to be”efficient".
Finally, the necessity of a more moral functioning of the establishment that did not depend at all on material considerations or “insufficiency of the budget".

In front of the overwhelming proofs which I reported (precise facts, names of the victims etc. …), the director of Lambèse had to receive me during about two hours, “as a friend”! After confirming the exposed misdeeds, he will announce to me his incapacity, despite his will to bring changes, in front of habits so very much ingrained. He had to advise me once more of “not to meddle in what does not concern me”, before starting to take all the necessary measures to allow my transfer to Algiers, and to improve the conditions of my friends, “now than SALLAT left”. During the audience, my cell had been meticulously searched, behind my back. Believing to lay the hand on eventual proofs of his compromise, as well as the names of my informants just as well among the prisoners as the custodians, the detention head ordered the seizing of all my manuscripts: note reading, mail even if endorsed by the censorship, project of a letter intended for your ministry etc. …. Even my medicine course had not been spared by this plundering; I would never see them again. The next day, the same detention head had to summon me for a warn without ambiguity: “I had to deal with stronger people than you and I always end up ruining them. My error was to scatter you among the relegate prisoners; this is what facilitated your investigation. I hope that you ended up understanding that I have the power to break the strong-minded persons, and I the full permission, especially in regards to you, you and your friends. Look at HAROUN Mohamed; his state should incite you to think! Know that I CAN MAKE YOU DISPARAITRE at any moment and nobody will not be able to testify for you, as you try to do it for the others. ACCIDENTS AND SUICIDES happen in all the prisons of the world!” …

Informed of the devilish ways by which he had broken other spoilsports, with the approval of his superiors, informed of the consequences that could generate the reactions of an unmasked murderer, conscious of the real danger that was on the lookout for my friends and me, I informed discreetly my family which came to visit us some days later. As early as the next day, my brother will raise the alarm by addressing an urgent telegram to the general manager of the application of the penalties, to the wali and to the public prosecutor of Batna, to draw their attention to the threats we had been subjected to. Useless to recall you that this telegram did not give rise to the least reaction, the different authorities having concluded doubtless that it was just the expression of a banal persecution complex, or of any syndrome of the recluse. On December 02nd, 1986, I had to be transferred to the prison of Constantine, where I am at present.

Minister,

At the risk of disappointing the promoters of the “special program of re-education” that had been elaborated on our behalf, I can assure you that our “stay” in Lambèse, in the middle of the relegates, did nothing but reinforcing our conviction as for the necessity of the price to have to pay for the respect of the dignity of the man in our country. During this period, we were able to measure all the extent of the damages that can generate intolerance, hate and the vindictive spirit, when they stand for political approaches, and the depth of the abyss from which it will be necessary to set off again to reach the acceptable minimum regarding treatment of prisoners in our country. When the arbitrary is set up as a rule, when the respect of a right is perceived as a favour or a fair reward for submission, when a reflex action takes the place of thought, it is necessary to agree that this is a matter of depravation that recalls us the sad epoch that we thought bygone for ever.

I was anxious to write you to draw your attention to the “trespassing” that my friends and me witnessed helplessly when we did not undergo them in our flesh and sometimes our dignity, striving myself to see in all that matter the result of your ignorance of the field realities, rather than the will to conceal by the speech something that cannot be moralised in facts. But, I insisted especially to write you because the sad results of the schizophrenic management of your predecessor, and his special excitement in our case constitute, in my opinion, the example not to follow regarding the misappropriation of authority that confers an official function to satisfy perverse instincts.

The dilution of the responsibilities in clandestineness having been the better guarantor of the forfeiture that allowed the expression of this underdeveloped Machiavellism in its most despicable forms, it pertains henceforth to each one to assume the consequences of his acts, since they cannot be moralised. I recall you that you are now minister of Justice, and as that, there is a minimum of lawful norms that you are supposed to know, and therefore obliged to make respect, even if the legal prerogatives of a function do not always recover real competences of the person who possesses them. The soothing speeches are not sufficient any more to conceal a dramatic situation that calls out every day on the conscience of each patriot that believes in an Algeria worthy of its martyrs’ sacrifice and the stifled aspirations of its people. The respect of Man’s dignity and his imprescriptible rights can not be reduced to the techniques habitually carried out for concealing their daily violation. Your predecessor lost his soul in it. It is still time to save yours.

Prison of Constantine, March 07 1987
Aït-larbi Arezki, Inmate number: 9620
Translation: D.Messaoudi