A communiqué of the Socialist Workers' Party (Algeria).
The mass arrests of demonstrators on Friday 14 May, as well as those of dozens of journalists and well-known political leaders such as Wahid Ben Halla (MDS leader), Mohcen Belabbes (RCD President), Ali Laskri (FFS leader), etc., constitute a serious escalation in the repression that must stop immediately. This strategy of the government, which consists in bringing the Hirak to heel, and by the same token all the Algerian people, is forging ahead to evade its political responsibilities. It is an authoritarian drift that could lead to a military-police state. It can only further weaken the Algerian national state in the face of the imperialist powers and justify their interference. This was the case yesterday with the European Parliament and it is the case today with the UN Human Rights Council.
For the respect of democratic freedoms!
Contrary to this repressive adventure, which could only exacerbate the legitimate determination of the Algerian people to defend their democratic freedoms, the government, whose historical political responsibility is engaged, must change course. The solution is political and cannot be achieved by repression, by electoral forcing and by the unilateral fixing of the rules of the political game without the will of the people. The government has the possibility, and above all the responsibility, to make the political choice of democracy and popular sovereignty that it claims to want to promote in its "new Algeria".
The government must respond positively and urgently to the following political and democratic demands:
- Release of all young activists of the Hirak as well as all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience;
- Cessation of all acts of repression and removal of all obstacles to the effective exercise of democratic freedoms in Algeria;
- Cancellation of the legislative elections of 12 June;
- Effective opening of the public media to all opinions, particularly to the partisan political opposition and citizens.
After the implementation of these emergency democratic political measures, which could inaugurate a phase of democratic transition and a sovereign popular constituent process, a national, democratic and transparent political debate must be organised among the people.
It is at the end of this free and untrammelled debate that the Algerian people will exercise their sovereignty and decide on their future through the election of a sovereign Constituent Assembly representative of their democratic and social aspirations.
The National Secretariat of the PST,
15 May 2021.