WUNRN
Hassi
Messaoud is
a town in south east Algeria. Oil
was discovered there in 1956. It is an oil refinery town named after
the first well.
WLUML - Women Living Under Muslim
Laws
ALGERIA - URGENT CALL TO ENSURE
PROTECTION
OF WOMEN WORKERS IN
HASSI MESSAOUD
04/15/2010
ALGERIA - Call to urgently ensure the
protection of women in Hassi Messaoud and put a permanent end to the impunity
of perpetrators of these assaults: We have continued to receive news, from
civil society organizations and the Algerian media, of terrible atrocities
perpetrated against women workers in Hassi Messaoud, in recent weeks.
These
events remind us of the tragic days of July 2001 which saw hundreds of women,
“tortured, stoned, raped and buried alive”, as recalled by the Algerian press.
Ten years later, these crimes go largely unpunished and women, in general, have not been able to rebuild their lives for lack of sustained material and financial support, but also while facing moral and legal challenges.
Time has not healed this nightmare, and it has started again. Violence has flared up conducted by gangs of youth that, once again with impunity, are stealing from, beating, and torturing - mostly migrant - women, who work in the industrial and economic sectors of Hassi Messaoud. The majority of them are in hiding because they cannot leave their jobs: they need to provide for themselves and support their families.
This situation is intolerable in terms of the law, our consciences and the human rights that these women are entitled to as citizens. It is intolerable in the face of the inaction, which has begun to resemble the complicity, of local police forces and administrative structures at the regional and national level. The authority of the state is constantly flouted because these groups know they can act with impunity. Justice has still not been served for the violence and killings of 2001.
We would therefore like to draw your attention to these gross violations of
the human and citizenship rights of these workers. It is imperative that there
is an immediate end to the violence and torture, which is condemned by national
and international laws.
We have urged the Algerian authorities at all levels of governance to intervene
urgently, and to take drastic and effective measures to ensure the protection
of women and put a final stop to these acts of banditry.
WLUML – Women Living Under Muslim Laws
SIAWI – Secularism is a Women’s Issue
WICUR – Women’s Initiative for Citizenship and Universal Rights
___________________________________________________________
|
Algeria
- Call for Justice & Continued Mourning for
Women Victims of Hassi Messaoud Lynching |
|
|
|
By Khalid Ould Sidi Baba |
|
10
March 2010 |
|
For 10 years, they try by all means so that their attackers are prosecuted and account for their acts. Intimidations, threats, pressures, settlement attempts, accusations via press intermediaries, the “39 of Hassi Messaoud” have undergone a full array of measures available to the authority in order to strangle the case, but the movement spokeswoman, Rahmouna Salah, has refused all offers and chooses to carry on the judicial procedure till the end to wash the honor of victims of the extremist plot. This worrying tendency in the Algerian desert reminds of the gang rape of Mrs. Rahmouna Dahousse, an Algerian HCR civil worker, who has undergone the worst physical abuse by the alleged members of the guerrilla movement one month earlier, causing a kind of agitation at the UN presence in Algeria.
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