Algeria’s security forces continue to detain and torture prisoners secretly, Amnesty International said on Monday in a report ahead of the Algerian president’s trip to London.
The human rights group said Algeria’s intelligence agency, the Department of Information and Security (DRS), is using the war on terror as an excuse to perpetuate torture and ill-treatment.
Detainees are beaten, subjected to electric shocks and forced to drink dirty water, urine or chemicals, Amnesty International said.
It wants Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair to urge Algeria’s President Abdelaziz Bouteflika during their meeting on Tuesday to investigate allegations of torture and abuse.
Bouteflika ”must also ensure that DRS officers no longer arrest or detain suspects and that any responsible for torture or mistreatment of detainees are promptly brought to justice”, said Malcolm Smart, director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa programme.
Blair and Bouteflika are expected to sign agreements on the deportation from Britain of convicted criminals and failed asylum seekers.
But a British Foreign Office spokesperson said on Monday that negotiations continue over a deal in which Britain would return terror suspects to Algeria in return for diplomatic assurances that they will not be tortured or abused.
About 150 000 people — Islamists, civilians and military — died in an insurgency triggered in 1992 by the Algerian army’s decision to cancel legislative elections that an Islamic fundamentalist party was poised to win.
The violence has subsided since the army installed Bouteflika as president in 1999, and Algeria has become an important partner in the war on terror.
Bouteflika, who has made efforts to curtail the military’s powers, has also said he will hold a national referendum on a new Constitution by the end of this year.
But Amnesty International says it remains concerned that a February 2006 Algerian amnesty law provides impunity for crimes under international law, including torture committed by the DRS.
Its report, Unrestrained Powers: Torture by Algeria’s Military Security, monitored what it said were dozens of cases of abuse between 2002 and 2006 where detainees were in secret detention centres, without access to lawyers, independent doctors, family or civilian oversight.
The report said countries including Canada, France, Italy, Malaysia, The Netherlands and Spain forcibly have returned individuals suspected of terrorist activities to Algeria, despite knowing that they will be detained and interrogated by the DRS.
”The persistent denial of the Algerian authorities of the widespread abuse that has taken place is an indication that Algeria has some way to go in combating torture and other ill-treatment,” Smart said.
Last month, two Algerian detainees returned voluntarily to their homeland from Britain. One, who was identified only as I, was described as a senior member of a terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden.
The Algerian embassy in London made no comment on the Amnesty International report. — Sapa-AP