SUBMITTED TO THE UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS COMMITTEE BY THE INTERNATIONAL WOMEN'S HUMAN RIGHTS LAW CLINIC, THE CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, AND THE INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

Introduction

This memorandum is being submitted to experts of the United Nations Human Rights Committee as a shadow report to the Periodic Report of the State of Algeria by the International Women's Human Rights Law Clinic (IWHR), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), and the International League for Human Rights (the "International League").

IWHR and CCR are non-governmental human rights organizations which have filed a lawsuit entitled Jane Doe v. Islamic Salvation Front and Anwar Haddam in the United States Federal Court under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act. The lawsuit has been brought by 9 individual plaintiffs and the Rassemblement Algerien des Femmes Democrates (RAFD) who represent the different sectors of society, and particularly women, who have been targets of violence perpetrated by or on behalf of political and armed groups. The lawsuit, over which the U.S. Court has accepted jurisdiction based on international law, alleges that defendants have committed war crimes and crimes against humanity against the civilian population, including the sexual enslavement of women, to establish a totalitarian, theocratic state based on their politicized and distorted version of Islam.

The International League, founded in l941, has long experience in submitting information relevant to this Committee's consideration of periodic reports. It joins this submission based on its concern that the egregious violations committed by non-state actors in Algeria have not received sufficient attention from the human rights groups who have focused their attention on the violations committed or suspected on the part of the State of Algeria.

While we do not question the critical importance of that task or the egregiousness of the violations by the State, the groups submitting this report do so in order that the Committee have a fuller picture of the grave threats to human rights in Algeria and address these matters with appropriate concern for all the victims and survivors.

The facts set forth in this report are based on interviews with and other information from targets, witnesses to the violence and historians, independent journalists and other experts in the field as well as documentary evidence consisting of the statements and reports of communications of the armed groups through communiqués and to their media outlets as well as the reporting of independent journalists within Algeria and the international press.

Civil society in Algeria has been subject to horrific levels of violence and widespread atrocities. Within the context of an internal armed conflict, both sides to the conflict have committed unspeakable violations. The reports by other human rights groups--particularly Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch--have focused principally on the direct violations by the State against those identified with the islamist cause. More recently, they have focused on allegations of state complicity in the islamist terror and/or lack of due diligence by the State in protecting civil society. These are all critical questions for the Committee.

At the same time, there has been very little attention to the fact that for the past two decades, the islamist armed groups have made it a central part of their strategy to sow terror among the civilian population as a means to obtaining power. These groups, sometimes working independently and sometimes in concert, are closely tied to, supported by, and sometimes directed by, the outlawed political party, the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS). These groups, including FIS, have committed widespread atrocities in the name of rights protected by the Covenant. Article 5 of the Covenant specifically was drafted to address this type of circumstance. The purpose of Article 5 and its application to this situation is detailed below. Additionally, the armed groups have subjected Algerian women and girls to extended periods of sexual slavery followed by death (usually by torture). Article 8 holds both State and private actors accountable for slavery.

Thus, in considering Algeria's periodic report, the Committee has a complex and urgent task. It must not only examine the State's direct violations. It must also examine and call direct attention to the responsibility of the non-state perpetrators of gross violations, and, in particular, their long-standing and systematic attack on women, lest they enjoy relative impunity for their barbarous acts. It is fundamental that the violations committed by the Islamist groups can never justify summary execution, torture and other violations of human rights as well as humanitarian law by the State. At the same time, the concerted campaign of terror or "djihad" carried out by the islamist armed groups, instigated and supported, if not directed, by their political leaders, allies and counterparts in such groups as FIS, raise critical questions concerning the State's and the Committee's obligations under article 2 and article 5 of the Covenant to seek to condemn these gross violations, protect the civil society from them, and prevent the abuse by the islamist groups of rights--particularly the freedom of religion, association and expression--protected by the Covenant.

By attending equally to these matters in the questioning and concluding comments, the Committee will recognize, keep the faith with and give heart to the independent members of civil society, --trapped between a corrupt and abusive State and islamist terror which seeks to impose a fascistic theocratic state,-- as they yearn for and risk their lives, in large and small ways, to keep alive the hope for real democracy and respect for human rights in Algeria .

Statement of Law

1. The Scope and Purpose of Article Five.

Article Five provides, in part, that "[n]othing in the present Covenant may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or perform any act aimed at the destruction of the rights and freedoms recognized herein or at their limitation to a greater extent than is provided for in the present Covenant." The history of the Convention makes clear that "[w]ith respect to persons and groups, the prohibition of misuse serves as a limitation to National Socialist, fascist, racist and other totalitarian activities, whereby certain rights, such as political rights and freedoms under Arts. 18, 19, 21, 22, and 25, are employed to destroy democratic structures an the human rights of others ensured by these structures." Manfred Nowak, CCPR Commentary 95 (1993).

This prohibition was present in even the earliest drafts of the Covenant and its twin, Article 30 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The early drafts only applied to private actors and the purpose of the article is to protect participating States against totalitarian ideologies. Manfred Nowak, CCPR Commentary 98 (1993). Drafters were concerned that such groups would attempt to undermine democratic rule of law by co-opting its basic principals for undemocratic ends. Id. at 95. Although the final Covenant's prohibition encompassed State actors, the proscription on misuse by non-state groups and individuals remained in force. ICCPR Art. 5.

So long as the private parties "engage in any activity or perform any act" to destroy the rights of others, that is so long as the private party actively exercises a right and misuses that right toward totalitarian ends, Article 5 applies. The rights protected by the Covenant that are susceptible to misuse are the rights to "religion, belief, expression, information, media, association, assembly and trade unions. . . ." Id. at 99. Article 5 has been applied by the Committee in M.A. v. Italy where it ruled a communication inadmissible where the author had been extradited from France to Italy and convicted of reorganizing the dissolved fascist party. No. 117/1981, par. 13.3. There the Committee found that the author's activities, which could be classified as the exercise of the rights of association, expression, and political participation, were "removed from the protection of the Covenant by article 5." Id.

2. Scope and Purpose of Article 8.

Article 8 provides that "[n]o one shall be held in slavery," and that "[n]o one shall be held in servitude." The prohibitions on slavery, historically and by universal consensus, apply to private actors. The history of the Convention in particular also makes clear that Article 8 applies to private actors, as a state-action limitation was proposed and rejected during the drafting stages. Andrew Clapham, Human Rights in the Private Sphere 97 (1993). Slavery is defined as the "status or condition of a person over whom any or all powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised." Manfred Nowak, CCPR Commentary 147 (1993)(quoting Slavery Convention of 1926). This definition clearly encompasses sexual slavery. See Report on the mission to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the Republic of Korea and Japan on the Issue of Military Sexual Slavery in wartime: Democratic People's Republic of Korea. 04/01/96, E/CN.4/199653/Add.1 (Report of the Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women, its Causes and Consequences) (Discussing the "comfort women" and recognizing that Korean women were taken into sexual slavery during World War II.).

Summary of Background Facts

1. FIS and the Armed Groups Have A Totalitarian Agenda
Engaging the Original Purpose of Article 5 of the Covenant.

The Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), Islamic Salvation Army (AIS), the Armed Islamic Movement (MIA), the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), and the Islamic Front of the Armed Djihad (FIDA) individually and in concert are engaging in a program to impose an totalitarian ideology on the citizens of Algeria. While they all claim that the calling off of the l992 elections precipitated and even justifies their use of violence against civil society, violence was embedded in the original islamist program both as a matter of ideology and tactics. The calling off of the l992 elections triggered the escalation of terrorist violence, already too familiar to civil society, particularly women, who were seen as resistant to islamist ideology, and their effort to gain control of the state.

Prior to the cancellation of the election, the leaders of FIS denounced democracy and advocated violence as necessary and consistent with "God's will." The FIS's goal, from its inception, was to transform Algeria into a non-democratic islamist state through both electoral and violent means. It was created by those who advocated the establishment of an islamist state through violent means and it gave birth to the armed groups, such as the Armed Islamic Group which it claims as its armed wing, and have pursued that end directly, sometimes under the direction. A popular FIS motto is "For it, we will die and for it we will stay alive. For it we will encounter God. For its sake we wage war. For the Islamic State."

The founding and current FIS leaders, Abassi Madani and Ali Belhadj, President and Vice-President have represent the FIS platform. For example, In February 1989, the Vice President of FIS, Ali Behadj stated:

There is no democracy because the only source of power is Allah through the Koran, and not the people. If the people vote against the law of God, this is nothing other than blasphemy. In this case, it is necessary to kill the non-believers for the good reason that they wish to substitute their authority for that of God.

In December 1989, Abassi Madani -- President of FIS -- stated: "We do not accept this democracy which permits an elected official to be in contradiction with Islam, the sha'aria, its doctrines and values." Prior to the elections he also stated that "Nationalism and democracy are terms which have no meaning."

This ideology was implemented through violent action against civil society, particularly against women, well before l992 at the same time as violence escalated thereafter. Women students wearing modern dress were assaulted with acid early in the islamist campaign. In l989, an islamist campaign targeted three women, --feminists and women living without male protectors. They were harassed and attacked in their homes as part of an islamist campaign to cleanse the neighborhood of women with inappropriate lifestyles. As a result, their homes were burned and the three-year old disabled child of one of the women died in the fire.

The programs implemented by FIS when they legally ran a number of municipalities as a result of the 1991 elections further evidenced their totalitarian goals. This is particularly true with regard to women as they began to impose through threats of force sex segregation in jobs, education and even public transport, and the wearing of the veil for women. During this time when they were legally in charge of a substantial number of municipalities, the FIS's iman Abdelkhader Moghni said:

[A]t a time when more than one million jobless has been announced, women are occupying jobs for nothing -- just to spend their salaries on make-up and dresses. They should return to their homes and it is not I who demand this, but God."

This rhetoric was backed up by political action on the part of FIS elected officials as well as the threat of force. The day after polling swept the FIS into a commanding first round lead, Mohammed Said stated "Algerians must change their clothing and drinking and eating habits." Schools, bars and dancehalls were closed. The armed groups are no less totalitarian. They have issued communiqués also making it clear the they will tolerate no deviation from their particular form and interpretation of Islam, including communiqués ordering forms of worship and dress codes for women. These directives are almost always backed up with force and threats of force, among these, assassination by beheading.

In the areas under FIS control and largely abandoned thereafter by the State, men were instructed not to physically greet women in any way, further illustrating that FIS ideology is entirely totalitarian down to the details of daily life. Nonetheless, women resisted in small, invisible ways, whether continuing to work at forbidden jobs or wear little bits of makeup beneath the veil. Recently, in one of the towns wracked by massacre, a man apologized to a woman for refusing to shake her hand with these words: "I am sorry. We have to learn again how to be human."

2. FIS and the Armed Groups Misuse Rights Protected by the
Covenant Including the Rights of Religion, Expression, Association,
and Political Association In Order to Deny the Rights of Other Algerian Citizens.

FIS and the armed groups primarily misuse the right to freedom of religion, but also the right to free expression and association, to undertake their program. In the name of freedom of religion the FIS has put forth its anti-democratic platform and endorsed violence as a strategy. As noted above, FIS has claimed its mission is "God's will" and its dictates required by "God." Moreover, their violent practices, as noted below, are justified by their religious leaders, including the practice of sexual slavery. As explained in Equality Now's submission, this archaic practice is justified by religious/military leaders as "temporary marriage"--zaouadj el moutaa-- and as a religious prerogative of the moujahadine, as discussed later. The islamists claim a right to form a political party and use armed resistance against the State. But their party's political platform is to destroy any hope of democracy in Algeria by any means violence and the installation of a fascistic theocratic state and their violence is directed not simply toward security forces, but toward the civilian population which is not islamist enough. Article 5 makes it clear that such abuse of rights is not protected by the Covenant.

In particular FIS and the armed groups impede the following rights and freedom of Algerian civilians: the right to life (Article 6), freedom from slavery (Article 8), freedom from torture (Article 7), the right to liberty and security of person (Article 9), freedom from unlawful arrest or detention (Article 9), liberty of movement (Article 12), right to a fair and public hearing (Article 14), right to privacy (Article 17), freedom of thought, conscience and religion (Article 18), freedom of expression (Article 19), right of peaceful assembly (Article 21), the freedom of association (Article 22), the right to marry freely and found a family (Article 23), the right to participate in the political process (Article 25), the right to equal protection (Article 26) and others. This report will discuss some of these violations below.

A. Violations of the Right to Life

The islamist forces have employed violence to achieve their ends since the 1970's. After the cancellation of the elections, this pre-existing strategy of reaching their goals through violence intensified and they have committed large numbers of assassinations, bombings and other massacres. The Vice-President of FIS, Ali Belhadj stated in October 1994 that "the far sighted leaders must put all their potential in the service of the djihad and coordinate all forms of djihad, notably the armed djihad, which is the most noble and highest form." This armed djihad, however, was not limited to clashes with Algerian government forces.

Initially, the assassinations, tortures, kidnappings and other atrocities by the FIS and its armed groups appeared targeted at segments of civil society that provided leadership for an alternative to FIS's vision. Journalists, feminists, intellectuals, teachers, artists and foreigners, --members of civil society who had no association with, and many who were publicly long-standing opponents to the government, --were assassinated in the name of the djihad. One or another of the armed groups claimed credit or sought to justify these assassinations. In the case of a leading intellectual and democrat, Dr. Boucebci, known for his critique of the State, FIS leader Anwar Haddam shocked and terrorized the community in describing the victim as "traitor" and the assassination as a "just execution." More than 60 journalists were assassinated and hundreds went into exile under threat of death. These threats and assassinations were explicitly undertaken for the purpose of preventing freedom of expression and political participation by civil society

Since l992, islamist assassins have consistently harassed and killed women for various expressions of disloyalty to their ideology, including continuing to work as teachers and hairdressers, or to refuse or fail to wear the veil. We are aware of at least two communiqués threatening death to unveiled women, one in l994 referred to by Equality Now and the other, in l996, attached as Exhibit B to this submission). The threat is pervasive and gained international attention when it was carried out in l994 against Katya Bengan, a 17-year old school girl. Additional facts are contained below. Leading women's rights activists have survived under threat of death. Khalida Messauouidi, has lived under a fatwa, or death sentence since 1993. Zazi Sadou , one of the leaders of RAFD, has been personally threatened as have members of her family.

Indiscriminate massacres and bombings sow terror among the civilian population. For example, 1995 a car bomb exploded on the Boulevard Amirouche in Algiers killing 42 and wounding 286 others, mostly women and children. Again FIS leader, Haddam, speaking from exile, actually sought to excuse the massacre, stating that it had been intended for the police station known as a site of torture. The bombing, however, occurred on the afternoon before the start of Ramadan when this street was foreseeably full of children and women shopping in preparation for the holy month. It was understood by the common people as collective punishment, an islamist admonition against disloyalty.

More recently, there has been an escalation of barbaric village massacres, claiming hundreds of lives, primarily of women and children. There are different assertions made in regard to these massacres, including by some of the islamist groups and international human rights NGOs that they are the work of Algerian security forces or self-defense groups. While there appears to be some truth to this assertion in some instances, it is to be hoped that the Committee will be able to explore it further or at least challenge the legitimacy of this one-sided view based on questionable testimony until further investigation can be conducted. It is essential that we point out that the exaggeration of this theory is adamantly contradicted by many human rights activists in Algeria and by the testimonies of eye witnesses and reports of independent journalists. We are aware, for example, of testimonies of survivors who were able to observe directly the perpetrators of the massacres who were not masked and were known in the community. In one case, the massacre was lead by a former elected official of FIS also known as a member of GIA. There has been inadequate documentation of the situation by groups outside Algeria largely due to the resistance of the State. At the same time, the distorted ascription of responsibility to the State has deeply angered activists in Algeria, as reflected in the letter attached as A hereto.

B. Violations of the Right to Free Expression

As noted above, force and threats of force - in particular assassinations - have been employed to prevent segments of civil society from exercising the right to free expression. Journalists have been killed or threatened for writing, and most of these journalists have to live underground for protection if they have survived thus far.

Women have been killed and threatened for not wearing the veil, and for choosing to work outside their homes. Any expression of feminist ideology is cause for assassination from the armed groups. The threats of force for expressing feminist ideology dates back to the 1970's when extremists in universities attacked students who supported a non-extremist agenda -- in particular women who refused to abide by the extremists' notion of their proper role and behavior. Specifically, women students were attacked for their political activism and their forms of dress.

C. Violations of the Rights to Free Exercise of Religion

The islamist groups, through the use of force and threats of force, prevent any interpretation of Islam other than their own. Thus, Muslims who practice their faith without wearing of the veil or practicing gender apartheid or who enjoy dancing have been targeted for violence and assassinations. The refusal to pay full obeisance to the islamist program is seen by many as the motivation for massacres and other collective punishment. In addition, Algerian citizens, residents, or simply persons visiting Algeria who choose not to practice any religion or practice a religion other than Islam are also targeted. Islamist groups, for example, assassinated 8 Catholic monks.

D. Violations of Women's Right to Equality and Equal Protection

The islamists' group stated goal is to impose gender apartheid, and deny equality to women in every aspect of life. As noted above, islamist attacked women as early as the 1970's and have targeted women consistently. These groups have made their agenda clear -- to establish a theocratic state, similar to that currently imposed in Afghanistan. Women who do not comply with islamist dictates have become the visible symbol of opposition to FIS and the armed groups. Consequently, the armed groups and individuals have threatened and attacked diverse women from feminist activists to athletes to hairdressers. Often women who work outside the home are threatened with death if they don't give up their employment. The islamist groups have also pressured for adoption of the "family code" which effectively denies women a legal personality and equal protection and treats them like minors under the law.

The sexual enslavement in forced "temporary marriage" is one of the most reprehensible violations, justified religiously and encouraged by religious leaders. For a number of years, islamists have kidnapped young women from the streets and taken them to their hiding places to be sexual and domestic slaves until they are killed or miraculously escape. In connection with the recent massacres, armed groups round up young women in a village, ranging in age from 14 to 35. After being sexually tortured, beaten, burned and murdered, their bodies have been found in groups, sometimes at the bottom of dry wells. One communiqué issued by a GIA emir (an English translation from the Arabic being attached as C hereto) and provided to us by an Algerian journalist chillingly illustrates the role that this sexual terror against women plays. The communiqué makes clear that the taking of women is authorized by the Emir and instructs the "fighters" of the armed groups on the "rules" of rape -- including peculiar incest taboos on who may be raped, when and by whom. In sum, killing, raping, intimidating, persecuting women, including taking them into sexual slavery, has consistently been central to the strategy of the armed groups and the islamist program for the State.

At the Arab Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Fourth World Conference on Women, the following statement, which sums up the situation, was read:

We the men and women participating in the Arab Regional Preparatory Meeting. . . declare and affirm our solidarity with Algerian women who are facing a brutal battle against their existence, thought, education and right to life; it is also a battle to deprive them of taking part in the progress and development of their country; that battle is waged by the forces of extremism and backwardness which have chosen to resort to the language of violence, arms and terrorism rather than dialogue. Those forces are committing the most heinous crimes against women and children in order to do away with the gains of Algerian women and to undermine the achievements of the Algerian Revolution in which women participated effectively, made sacrifices and became models for Arab women in the struggle for the freedom, progress and stability of their country.

U.N.Doc. E/ESCWA/SD/1994/10 (1995) at 4.

E. Violations of the Right to Political Participation

As noted above, FIS ideology does not permit for any form of democracy. Any political activity that contradicts the agenda of FIS subjects the participant to death. Thus, over time scores of leaders from Algerian civil society have been assassinated. See sect. 2a.

F. Violations of the Right to be Free from Slavery and Torture

As noted above, the armed groups have taken scores of Algerian women into their military camps and held them there for torture and sexual slavery. These women are brutally raped for months, then tortured further and killed. The islamist refer to this enslavement as "temporary marriages" and religious edicts have been issued directing the specific rules of rapes. This enslavement violates both Article 5 and 8 of the Covenant. Additionally, the armed groups have taken democratic activists tortured and beheaded them. Some of these activists have been tortured in the presence of their family before being taken away and assassinated.

3. Links between the political and the armed islamic groups.

The armed groups have over time controlled different parts of Algeria's territory -- including Blida, Sidi Ali, Bounab and Media, Saida, Sidi Bel Abbes, and Tlemcen. Primarily they have controlled the area known as the "triangle of death." In the areas they have controlled, they have ruled through issuing their communiqués. These communiqués have imposed curfews, assessed taxes, prescribed religious conduct, announced leadership of their "government," directed conduct for women, including imposing the wearing of the veil and sharply limiting participation in public life, and as mentioned above, established and condoned the "rules of rape." The armed groups have also organized tribunals which, among other things, conduct trials with the "defendant" in absentia and impose "sentences" of death through assassination.

The main political arm of this web of islamist groups is unquestionably the FIS. While the FIS recently has claimed to disavow the violence, such statements lack credibility in light of its consistent ideology and long-standing support of terror against civilians as a legitimate. In fact, while the FIS were in power in 1991(in what is known as the "triangle of death" because of the large number of massacres), evidence has come to light that they built or allowed to be built an extensive underground tunnel system, including weapons-making and satellite communication facilities and hospitals to support their armed terrorist campaign.

While different groups have formed over time, different leaders have risen and fallen, and internecine conflict and fighting expectable in this violent, religiously motivated bid for power, the groups share overlapping leadership and collaboration and a common goal. For example, FIS leaders abroad have been prosecuted for terrorism and arms trafficking -- specifically for providing arms to the armed groups in Algeria. In Germany two sons of Abassi Madani, President of the FIS, were convicted and sentenced after an inquiry into arms trafficking on the behalf of GIA. In Italy, Djamel Lounici, a member of FIS, is currently incarcerated for arms trafficking, the use of false documents and "association de malfaitueurs." He is implicated in the attack of the Algiers airport in which a dozen people were killed. Anwar Haddam, who currently is in custody of the immigration service of the United States, is a highly placed FIS leader and, in a communiqué, was described as "Minister" of GIA, the Armed Islamic Group. Although entitled not to be returned to Algeria because of the fear of persecution, he has been denied asylum because of his "participation in the persecution of others." In 1995 at an Islamic Conference held in Khartoum, he stated that "FIS helps them [the armed groups], directs them, and unites the armed groups so as to assemble them as one," and that the djihad would not stop until an Islamic state is established in Algeria.

Conclusion

The foregoing information is thus submitted to assist the Committee in framing questions for the State of Algeria and to ensure that in preparing its concluding observations, the actions of the islamist terrorists be fully taken into account under article 5 of the Covenant as well as the State's duties under the Covenant to protect the civilian population from abuse of their fundamental rights.

Respectfully submitted,

Catherine Albisa
Rhonda Copelon
IWHR
City University of New York Law School
65-21 Main Street
Flushing, NY 11367 USA
FAX: 1-718-340-4478

Jennifer Green
Center for Constitutional Rights
666 Broadway
New York, NY 10012 USA
FAX: 1-212-614-6495

Catherine Fitzpatrick
International League for Human Rights
432 Park Avenue South
New York, NY USA
TEL: 1-212-684-1221