Algiers-Geneva-Paris-Tunis, 14 December 2022,
Mr. Aïmene Benabderrahmane, Prime Minister
Mr. Ramtame Lamamra, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Mr. Brahim Merad, Minister of the Interior
M . Abderrachid Tabi, Minister of Justice
Mr. Abdelmadjid Zaalani, President of the National Council for Human Rights
Mr. Abderrahmane Hamzaoui, President of the National Observatory of Civil Society
Honourable Ministers,
On Thursday 1 December 2022, Ms Yosra Frawes, a renowned Tunisian feminist lawyer and activist, women’s rights defender, former President of the Tunisian Association of Democratic Women (ATFD) and head of the Middle East and North Africa Desk at the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), was prevented from entering Algerian territory, as she was on her way to a meeting with women’s organisations from the sub-region, in Oran. Indeed, coming from Tunis, on her arrival at Algiers airport, Yosra Frawes was stopped and spent many hours at the airport under police surveillance. This without the possibility of informing anyone due to the cutting of her mobile phone and internet connections. Her passport was also confiscated. She was interrogated several times in order to find out the organisers and the programme of the meeting she was going to, as well as the people she had met during a previous visit to Algeria, at the beginning of the "Hirak" movement in 2019. It was clearly implied that her profession as "FIDH official", which appears on her Tunisian passport, meant that she was banned from entering Algeria. Subsequently, on the same day, Yosra Frawes was deported by plane to Tunisia, without any legal reason for this ban.
We, international human rights organisations and Algerian and Tunisian civil society organisations, denounce the arbitrary refoulement to which Yosra Frawes has been subjected because of her peaceful activities to promote and defend human rights and her contacts with Algerian civil society opposition figures, in clear violation of her right to freedom of movement.
We recall that the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) has in the past considered as "arbitrary" the deprivation of liberty of a human rights defender seeking to enter a third country to peacefully exercise their rights to freedom of expression, freedom of assembly and freedom of association. On 20 July 2017, Adilur Rahman Khan, secretary of the Bangladeshi human rights NGO Odhikar, vice-president of FIDH and member of the OMCT General Assembly, was deported to Bangladesh after being detained for over 14 hours by Malaysian immigration at Kuala Lumpur International Airport. In an opinion adopted on 20 November 2017, the WGAD declared Mr Khan’s detention arbitrary; see also: WGAD, Opinion No. 67/2017 concerning Adilur Rahman Khan (Malaysia), 7 December 2017; UN Doc. A/HRC/WGAD/2017/67; and Urgent Appeal of the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT) MYS 001 / 0717 / OBS 083.1.
We appeal to your authority to restore Ms Yosra Frawes’ rights, so that she can once again move freely in Algeria. We also hope that your country will welcome any representative of our organisations who would like to visit Algeria for personal or professional reasons. Indeed, we also deplore the fact that the letters requesting an appointment sent to your services by the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (FIDH-OMCT) in August and September 2022, ahead of a scheduled field visit, have remained unanswered to date.
Finally, we hope that your authorities will ensure that all human rights defenders can carry out their legitimate activities without hindrance in Algeria, regardless of their nationality.
With our respectful greetings,
Read here the story (in French) of this event by Yosra Frawes.