Page 152 - The Winter of Islam and the Spring to Come

THE WINTER OF ISLAM AND THE SPRING TO COME
150

THE

CIVILIAN
POPULATION
WAS AGAIN THE
TARGET...

Massacres similar to the
one shown in these pic-
tures were carried out in
surprise raids on Algerian
houses. People were torn
out from their beds and
brutally murdered, and
babies were shot.

The Algerian people have been hurt in their dignity since the coup
d'etat of January 1992. Mass and arbitrary arrests of innocent peo-
ple, including teachers, engineers, doctors, lawyers, merchants, and
students; people sent without trial to internment camps or thrown
into prison in inhuman conditions of detention. Furthermore,
young Algerians are killed everyday without any evident reason by
death squads, only because they represent a potential danger for the
regime. 27

In his Nov. 16, 1997 article entitled "We Accuse 80,000 Times," John
Sweeney, a reporter for British daily The Observer, lent support to
Brahimi's words. Sweeney was particularly interested in Algeria and
expressed his views on the slaughter in the country after interviewing
people who had witnessed the savagery with their own eyes:
... [T]he weight of evidence indicts the state of Algeria. Around 80,000
people have been killed since the generals cheated the people by
scrapping elections in 1991. The government – le pouvoir – is corrupt,
hated and stays in power by a reign of terror. Consider the evidence
from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the International
Federation of Human Rights, Reporters Without Frontiers; evidence