Algeria arrests 27 separatist movement members

Algerian demonstrators carry national and Amazigh flags in Tizi-Ouzou, in the Kabylie heartland of the Amazigh community on December 8, 2019 [RYAD KRAMDI/AFP via Getty Images]

Algerian police yesterday announced that they had arrested 27 individuals suspected of ties to a separatist group that Algiers considers a “terrorist organisation”.

“The defendants were arrested on charges of undermining national unity, harming public order, and inciting a gathering,” the local authorities said in a statement, adding that they had ties to the local Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie (MAK).

The statement claimed that the defendants were attempting “to sow strife and fear among citizens and re-activate sleeper cells of this terrorist organisation, on the order of foreign parties.”

MAK is an Algerian local movement that calls for the independence of Algeria’s eastern regions, where the Berbers live.

Algeria’s Human Rights League (LADDH) on Sunday called for the release of more than 20 people who it said had been arrested recently.

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