In the context of Algeria’s rotating presidency of the United Nations Security Council for the current month of January, Ferhat Mehenni, leader of the Movement for the Independence of Kabylia (MAK) and president of the Kabyle provisional government in exile , sent a request to Ammar Benjama, ambassador and permanent representative of Algeria to the United Nations, to open a debate within the Council on the “ right to self-determination of Kabylia ».
In her application, Mehenni states: “ As I take note of the questions and debates that you plan to raise within this prestigious international body, I would like to ask you, in the name of the right of peoples to self-determination — a principle dear to your country when it This concerns Palestine, the conflict in the Sahara and more recently Azawad – to place on the United Nations agenda the examination of the right of the Kabyle people to self-determination. This right is violently repressed by Algeria, in defiance of this fundamental principle ».
“I would be grateful if you would inform the members of the United Nations Security Council of the serious human rights violations of which the Kabyle people have been victims since June 2021. These are based on article 87 bis of the Algerian penal code, which equates any demand for the right to self-determination of the Kabyle people to acts of ‘terrorism’, adds the president of the provisional Kabyle government in exile adds in his letter sent Monday to the Algerian ambassador.
In this sense, he recalls that “as many as 13,000 activists were arrested, tortured and raped during interrogations before being imprisoned and given heavy sentences based on fabricated evidence”noting that“currently, 38 Kabyles are among those sentenced to death for a crime they did not commit”.
Mehenni emphasizes in this regard that “Algeria, which regularly grants pardons to tens of thousands of criminals, refuses to release Kabyle political prisoners”
For the Kabyle activist, “she seeks to use them as a bargaining chip to obtain from our movement the abandonment of the fight for the freedom of the Kabyle people. She is also trying to exploit Boualem Sansal as another lever of pressure to push France to change certain positions in its foreign policy.
« To justify the arbitrary classification of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie as a ‘terrorist’ organization, Algeria used drones, fighter jets and helicopters to burn all regions of Kabylia on August 9, 2021, causing more than 500 dead and a thousand seriously injured by burns“, accuses the MAK leader.
To conclude his missive, Mehenni recalls that Algeria “ accused Israel, Morocco and the MAK of being at the origin of this criminal act, which is part of a genocidal operation called ‘Zero Kabyle’, coordinated at the highest summit of the Algerian military hierarchy. This strategy also aimed to push the Kabyle liberation movement to take up arms, but its peaceful engagement foiled this treacherous maneuver. ».
