Reinforcements for Algeria’s civil society
ECPM and Penal Reform International (PRI), another World Coalition member, held a conference on the death penalty in Algiers on 15 and 16 December 2013 in association with the National Consultative Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights (CNCPPDH).
The event focused on the role of civil society in the abolition process at the national, regional and international levels. It was an opportunity for many regional experts to support the Algerian abolitionist movement in a difficult national context – for the first time since 2009.
Algerian media gave the conference broad coverage, including the newspaper
Le Temps d’Algérie, which quoted abolitionist lawyer Miloud Brahimi as saying: “Algeria has chosen national reconciliation after a decade of tragedy, and the country will certainly accept the abolition of this punishment.”
Heithem Chebli of PRI noted that « applying the death penalty to exert revenge cannot achieve the ideal form of justice the whole of mankind is striving to achieve”.
ECPM Executive Director and World Coalition Vice-President Raphaël Chenuil-Hazan reminded the participants of the death penalty’s troubled history in the country: “The guillotine and the death penalty were an instrument of terror and violence used by the French colonial power in Algeria,” he said.
CNCPPDH President Farouk Ksentini supported the abolitionist movement’s demands, but he maintained that the death penalty was justifiable in the cases of crimes against children.