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Zaki Hannache, an Algerian human rights activist, announced on Friday that he had obtained refugee status from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). This figure of Hirak, the popular protest movement which forced Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to leave office in 2019, was very active on social networks. His commitment to the release of prisoners of conscience led him to be detained for several weeks in Algeria at the beginning of the year, and prosecuted for “apology for terrorist acts» et «spreading false information».
After his release, he traveled to Tunisia to seek asylum there but said on Facebook on Friday that he learned that “the Tunisian authorities were looking for him to hand him over to Algeria” and to have “had to go to the UNHCR to ask for their protection“. The United Nations refugee agencydecided to grant me refugee status“, he announced. “Also, UNHCR has confirmed that I am not a terrorist or a criminal“. The determination of refugee status is primarily the responsibility of States, but the UNHCR, in certain cases, can also take charge of this procedure.
Up to 35 years in prison in Algeria
In a communication to the Algerian government in mid-September, the UN Rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, expressed “serious concerns regarding the arrest and detention of Mr. Hannache, as well as the charges once morest him, which seem directly related to his work as a human rights defender».
This week, 55 organizations, notably Algerian and Tunisian, but also international, said they feared that Hannache would be deported to Algeria, where he would face up to 35 years in prison, “for the sole fact of having used (his right to) freedom of expression».
«The Tunisian authorities must in no case repeat the dangerous precedentby Slimane Bouhafs, an Algerian activistkidnappedin Tunisia and deported to Algeria in August 2021, they point out in a press release.
Since 2019, Algerian authorities have prosecuted hundreds of people in connection with Hirak or the defense of human rights, according to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD).
