UAE and Algeria sign security agreement

March 11, 2013

Abu Dhabi: The UAE and Algeria have signed a security cooperation agreement that provides for fighting all forms of crimes and exchanging information and expertise to enable such a partnership.

Lieutenant General Shaikh Saif Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, and Dahou Ould Kablia, Algeria’s Minister of Interior and Local Government, signed the agreement in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

The agreement covers cooperation in combating all forms of crimes, including human and drugs trafficking and trade in illegal arms. It also set the legal framework and mechanisms of coordination between both sides in their joint efforts to fight all types of crime and share information and expertise related to security issues.

The agreement calls for setting up a joint committee to follow up on the progress of the security partnership.

Source: http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/government/uae-and-algeria-sign-security-agreement-1.1156982

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"Crime" = Freedom of expression

"Exchanging information" = Exchanging intelligence, monitoring the public.

"Expertise related to security issues" = Expertise in dealing with potential threats to the regime - silencing genuine opposition. 

A recent spike in defence spending and now a "security agreement" between a military-run regime and a Gulf state, run by an authoritarian monarchy outwardly adamant against the Arab Spring. < A match made in heaven. 

It seems like the Algerian regime is doing everything it can to prepare itself against a future uprising. 

But the uprising is inevitable. 

Riots erupt in Algeria over social housing

A mark of scenes to come. 
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52 People injured when protesters clash with police in Bodj Bou Arreridj over allocation of subsidised housing.

Middle East Online

Shortage as more than 26,000 people are seeking social housing ALGIERS - People angry over the allocation of subsidised housing have clashed with police in a town east of the Algerian capital, leaving 52 people injured, an AFP correspondent said on Wednesday. Rioters sacked the mayor's office in Bodj Bou Arreridj, 230 kilometres (145 miles) from the capital, and partly blocked a motorway, causing tailbacks. Forty-three demonstrators and nine police were being treated in hospital on Wednesday, a day after the protests broke out when a list of 935 people being allocated social housing was published. The demonstrators gathered in front of the prefecture with banners that read: "We demand our right to housing" and "Down with corruption and favouritism." Riot police responded with tear gas to disperse them. "We published a list of beneficiaries for 935 homes, which people have a right to contest. But there are demonstrations because there are more than 26,000 people seeking social housing," local official Mamoun Belmouhou said. He said the authorities had already received 3,000 complaints. The publication of housing allocations often results in violence in Algeria, which has a serious shortage. President Abdelaziz Bouteflika promised to build more than one million homes under a 2010-2014 development plan, but construction is slow and complaints of corruption are numerous. Source: http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=57239

With Limited Freedoms, Many Algerians Vote with Their Feet

By Vivienne Walt / Algiers

An Algerian electoral worker sits beside a ballot box while waiting for people to cast their votes for the parliamentary elections at a polling station on the outskirts of Algiers on May 10, 2012

“You’re an American journalist?” says Yassin Benabdullah, a lanky 21-year-old in a baseball cap, when I introduce myself to him on a down town street. “Take me with you! I’ll go now, this minute.”

In Algiers, a city of 3.5 million people, this is not a rare encounter. Stop any young person, and invariably the conversation turns to one preoccupation: leaving. When I meet 20-year-old Mehdi Haouchine in a café, he seems like a young man with a bright future. A marketing student at a private college in the Algerian capital, he tells me he has a shelf full of trophies for karate at home. So, I ask, What are his ambitions? “I just need the opportunity to go to a foreign country,” he says. “I don’t mind where I go. There are no prospects here.”

At least on paper, this should not be the case. The biggest country in Africa, Algeria is nearly four times the size of Texas, and just like Texas, it has made fortunes in oil. It has Africa’s third biggest energy reserves (after Nigeria and Libya), pumping 1.16 million barrels of oil a day, with the U.S. as its biggest customer and foreign cash reserves exceeding $170 billion. Bread, cooking oil and gasoline are heavily subsidized for 35 million Algerians. Health care and education are free, and there’s even a $15 monthly book allowance for university students.

Yet that public wealth is part of the problem. Back in early 2011, when the Arab Spring exploded, first in next-door Tunisia and then in Egypt, many thought Algeria would be the next to blow. It seemed to have all the right ingredients: a powerful security force and an aging president, Abdelaziz Bouteflika, who was installed with military approval in 1999 and showed no signs of retiring.

But the Arab Spring never arrived in Algeria. And in fact, Bouteflika, now 75, is expected to run for a fourth term in office, in an election scheduled for next year, since the government has scrapped presidential term limits.

Algerians seem fiercely opposed to any revolution, having lived through a brutal civil war in the 1990s, which killed up to 200,000 people. In addition, when young Algerians began street protests in early 2011, inspired by the Tunisian uprising, Bouteflika rushed to snuff out dissent, by pouring money at the problem. Minimum wages were increased by 20%, youths were offered interest-free loans worth tens of thousands of dollars, and officials promised to build 2.4 million new homes, addressing one of the most-bitter complaints by young Algerians who say they are stuck living in their parents’ cramped apartments, rather than getting married, since there is nowhere to move out to.

Two years on, those new houses have been slow in coming, although earlier this month, the state-run Algerian TV led the evening news showing blueprints for a new housing complex (delivery date: unknown). And while Algerians earn more money these days, many complain that it has barely kept pace with inflation, and that much government largesse has gone to police and military pay.

Algeria’s government is aware that they are losing its bright youths. “You’re right some people want to leave the country, while others are coming back,” says Minister of Energy and Mines Youcef Yousfi during an interview in his office when I ask him why so many young people want to leave Algeria. Nonetheless, the World Bank estimates about 200,000 more people have left Algeria than have arrived over the past five years. Yousfi says that is one reason why the government is racing to create jobs by opening new industries. Then, he says, “the feeling of wanting to go outside will progressively disappear.”

But the youths’ grievances are not all economic. Underlying all the complaints is the fact that the political system has barely changed in decades — and neither have most of the faces at the top. Bouteflika appoints a portion of parliamentary seats himself, while the military and intelligence services hold key decisionmaking powers. Mosques deliver government-written sermons. Mass protests are banned. Police officers stand watch over neighborhoods carefully, looking for signs of organized dissent. “We need a change here, but it is going to take a long time,” says Amin Ouslimani, 24, a political-science student. “I can state my opinion,” he says, “and anyway, I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care what I am saying.”

Indeed, the griping among the youths is so pervasive and so loud, that it’s a shock for anyone who has traveled around this region. Algeria’s government invites few foreign journalists; and in the country, I am restricted to the capital and obliged to leave Algeria after just one week. But unlike Libya or Tunisia before the Arab Spring, where people were terrified to speak to journalists, no one is at all inhibited about what they say. Public ranting about the government seems a favorite pastime among young Algerians, who look at the old men running the country as wholly disconnected from their lives.

It seems many young Algerians have simply given up waiting for change. When I ask Haouchine, the management student–karate champion, why he doesn’t wait for the old leaders to die off rather than trying his luck abroad, he shakes his head. “The leaders will die, but then there’ll be their sons,” he says. “It’s like a heritage.”

So, as true change, with a dynamic economy and open democracy, looks remote and as a revolution is ruled out, many youths focus on the option that seems to hold most promise: getting out.

In the café where I meet Haouchine, friends swap rumors about which embassies might be open to a bribe of about $7,500 in order to obtain a visa. One says it used to be France. Another says it is now Spain. Few care where they go. “I have one friend in Boston, another in Spain,” says Ouslimani, the political-science student. “But New Zealand, Norway, Vienna — they all seem like nice places to live.”

Source: http://world.time.com/2013/02/18/with-limited-freedoms-many-algerians-vote-with-their-feet/#ixzz2YSkgUEkk

Algerian blogger faces jail for inciting protests

The Algerian prosecutor general filed a complaint with the Algiers court against young blogger Tareq Memari for inciting violence and calling for mass protests. Memari was arrested shortly thereafter. 

Memari, who could face up to three years in jail if found guilty, had posted a video on You Tube right before the recent parliamentary elections. In the video, Memari addressed Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and complained of the rising rates of unemployment amongst the youth. He told the president that he is boycotting the elections and called upon Algerian youth to do the youths. 

Memari then got out his voting card and burnt it in front of the camera ─ an act which drove the prosecutor general to ask for his arrest.

"Yes, I destroyed electoral placards and burned my voter's card... I opted to do that rather than immolate myself," the young blogger told the state prosecutor last month.

According to Amin Sidhom, coordinator of the Lawyers’ Network for the Defense of Human Rights and Memari’s lawyer, the accusations leveled at his client are all fabricated and his client’s actions are a normal reaction to government policies.

“Because citizens’ freedom is repressed and they are deprived of voicing their opinions through regular media, they resort to online means like what Memari did when he addressed the president from You Tube,”.

The action of burning the voting card, Sidhom added, is not punishable by law.

“This is his own card and he has the right to do with it as he pleases. Plus, what he did was a symbolic action to voice his discontent.”

Memari also faces charges for tearing down election posters which, Sidhom noted, does not imply insulting any government institution like the complaint claims.

“This does not even insult the Elections Commission.”

As for calling upon Algerians to protest, Sidhom pointed out that this is only a charge in “uncivilized” countries.
“In all civilized countries, citizens have the right to protest and cannot be prosecuted for doing so.”

The verdict in the case is expected on June 27.

Critics of last month's election say the ruling National Liberation Front's victory was never in doubt.

Other contenders in the election were widely seen as bogus parties recently founded to create an illusion of democracy or older parties co-opted by the regime.

Many Algerians opted to boycott the vote as a way of protesting the status quo in the oil-rich north African nation at a time when the Arab Spring was bringing sweeping political change to other countries in the region.

Official election results put the turnout at 43 percent, a figure that opposition parties and experts argued was grossly inflated.

An Algerian court last month sentenced a Yemeni Salafist imam to six months in jail, a $1,300 fine and a 10-year ban on visiting Algeria for having issued a religious edict urging voters to boycott the election.

Algeria: The revolution that never was

Does 'progressive leadership' or something more complex and sinister explain why Algeria's 'Spring' never materialised?

The 'Arab Spring' of 2011 brought down autocratic governments across North Africa and the Middle East. But, despite widespread street protests that initially threatened to spark a Tunisian or Egyptian style revolt, an expected uprising in Algeria failed to materialise. President Abdelazziz Bouteflika's regime - often accused of being one of the most repressive in the region - promised modest political reform and managed to hold onto power. Earlier this month it claimed to have delivered on these promises when parliamentary elections were held, in which the ruling National Liberation Front (or FLN) won an overwhelming majority of the votes. Although opposition groups were quick to deride the poll as a sham and to accuse the government of manipulating the results, European and American observers called the poll a step toward democracy. So what has been going on in Algeria for the last year? Did it genuinely, as the government would claim, avoid the upheaval that swept through the rest of North Africa last year because of the Bouteflika regime's 'progressive leadership'? Or has something darker and more complex been going on - a story that opponents and human rights activists say has more to do with a wary population traumatised by the country's violent past and living in fear of its secret police?  People & Power wanted to find out, but getting into Algeria is difficult - not least because Al Jazeera has been denied official access to the country since 2004. Nevertheless, when our requests for journalist visas were ignored, our filmmakers managed to get in unofficially and were able to work discreetly. Producer Caroline Pare describes what they found. Producer's view In the capital Algiers at least, life seemed freer and more lively than we expected. The shops and cafes were full and, superficially at least, this did not seem to be a place on the cusp of revolution. It felt like a country coming out of something very bad and now quite determinedly making the best of a difficult situation. Why did the expected uprising fail to materialise in Algeria?[EPA] But when we began meeting human rights activists, we got a much better sense of what ordinary Algerians are up against and what they really think. To start with, the military and intelligence people, the DRS, are omnipresent, so meetings had to be arranged surreptitiously. On one occasion, for example, a contact identified himself at a street corner by using pre-arranged code words. Then he asked us to follow him very discreetly and at a distance to the Metro, past the police and the surveillance cameras, onto a train and out to his tiny apartment in the suburbs. Only when safely behind closed doors did he feel able to speak freely about the repression and the many economic problems the country faces - a housing crisis, rocketing unemployment and spiralling food prices. He told us things were so bad that desperate young people were burning themselves alive. There were around 130 self-immolations in Algeria last year. Indeed just before the election in the seaside town of Jijel, a 25-year-old man, Hamza Rechak, set himself on fire, in despair at having been prevented by police from selling cosmetics from his small stall and then at being taunted by them. His death caused outrage in the town and sparked a riot as young men attacked the police station in fury. Other Algerians told us that theirs was actually the first country to have an 'Arab Spring'. In 1988, the people took to the streets and forced the government to hold a free and fair election. After the first round of voting it became apparent that the opposition Islamic FIS party was set to win. But it was not to be because the military intervened. The country turned in on itself and entered a 'dark decade' of bloody violence that saw an estimated 200,000 people killed. To this day it casts a fearful shadow. The chaos enabled the DRS to get a stranglehold on the country and the body politic that democracy activists say persists to this day. So the elections that were held this month do not seem to have much credibility among voters. Indeed we heard from various political analysts before the election that they could predict the turnout - based on what the government required to make the process acceptable in international eyes - and sure enough they were pretty close to the 43 per cent officially announced. The governing party won overwhelmingly. In Algeria, we are told, everything is preordained by the powerful shadow state, the DRS. And it does not brook criticism. Algeria is a country rich in oil and gas reserves, earning it perhaps $200bn each year. But there are few jobs in the oil industry for Algerians and unemployment and poverty are real problems. Youth unemployment is at over 40 per cent. The level of desperation on the ground is such that discontent boils up into street protests on a daily basis - we were told that there were 40,000 such protests last year alone against housing, food prices, police corruption etc. Yet Algerians have not yet turned to outright revolution. We began to understand why when talking to people about the 'dark decade' and the terrors they lived through that still traumatise their lives. To put it simply, people are scared. We spoke to families whose loved ones were killed or vanished during those years. As many as 20,000 of these 'disappeared' are still being sought by their families, according to a group called SOS Disparu that supports families looking for their loved ones. They introduced us to one woman whose husband was snatched from their doorstep 18 years ago. She has heard nothing officially of him since then, despite writing and visiting all the government offices she could think of. The only information came from fellow detainees who tell her he was probably horrendously tortured. All these years later the memory of her husband still moves her to tears. Will all this change? We were taken to see Dr Salah-Eddine Sidhoum, an orthopaedic surgeon and one of Algeria's most respected opposition figures. As we sat in his study, the TV in the corner was showing a live broadcast of the funeral of Algeria's first post-independence president. We asked Sidhoum why the events that shook the rest of the Arab world in 2011 seemed to have passed his country by. His response was emphatic. "Algeria is not an exception," he said. "The revolution will come here in Algeria sooner or later - it's just a question of time." http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/peopleandpower/2012/05/2012516145457232336.html