Human Rights in Morocco: The Return of the Guillotine in Algeria is a Setback for Human Rights

A human rights setback puts the Algerian regime in conflict with the international community

In a move that raises fundamental questions about the true commitment of the Algerian regime to international covenants and treaties, the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights has expressed its deep concern regarding suspicious movements within the corridors of power in the eastern neighbor, which indicate a clear intention to return to the implementation of the death penalty after a freeze that lasted more than three decades.

The Algerian regime disregards international obligations

The human rights organization believes that this trend is nothing but a “dangerous regression” regarding the supreme right, which is the right to life. After the Algerian regime claimed its involvement in the international system by voting in favor of UN resolutions calling for a global moratorium on executions in 2007, we see it today reversing its previous positions, disregarding Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Return of the “Death Penalty”: Pressure tool or a flight forward?

The Algerian regime’s move to revise criminal legislation to re-legitimize the implementation of the death penalty is a confirmation of the failure of the reformist approach within Algerian prisons, and a resort by the authorities there to the choice of “revenge and exclusion” rather than heading towards a criminal justice system that respects human dignity. This decision, if implemented, will classify Algeria among rogue states in terms of human rights, at a time when the whole world is moving towards the complete abolition of this cruel and inhumane punishment.

Urgent call to pressure the Algerian regime

In a firm stance, the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights called on the international community and global human rights bodies to take urgent action to pressure the Algerian regime to abandon this regressive plan. Silence on this persistence in liquidating freedoms and threatening the right to life in Algeria will only lead to further human rights setbacks that may extend their effects to destabilize regional stability.

The organization confirms that the responsibility to protect the right to life lies with the states, and that any reversal of the moratorium on implementation that has lasted since 1993 is an explicit declaration by the Algerian regime of its renunciation of universal human values, which forces internationally active powers to take firm positions to prevent the return of the guillotine to work in Algerian prisons.