Despite cross-border terrorist threats in North Africa, Algeria did not witness major terrorist operations ever since the In Amenas hostage crisis in 2013. Algeria has managed to solidify civil peace, implement a successful model of national reconciliation and restructure security, military and intelligence institutions. It also cooperated with neighboring countries in terms of monitoring borders. The red decade turned into a psychological deterrent for young people and teenagers.
Legal and Political Approaches
Algeria’s long experience in combating terrorism made it realize that security approaches alone are useless, as they only focus on coercive methods to confront terrorism. Terrorism is a multifaceted social phenomenon, which resolving requires an approach that takes into consideration all of its components.
Based on this, Algeria adopted a new strategy called “dismantling extremism and fighting terrorism.” The strategy includes political, security, economic, social, judicial and punitive measures that aim to preserve the general order and protect people, property and religious institutions. These measures also review terrorist content circulated on media and social media and reform educational curricula.
Perhaps what this strategy is concerned about the most is establishing a state of law and participatory democracy. Those who engineered this strategy believe that democracy can play a role in protection from violent extremism and terrorism. Development that is based on social justice and equal opportunities forms an impenetrable barrier against extremist obscurantist propaganda and fortifies citizens – particularly teenagers and youths – against attempts to recruit them in terrorist groups, especially that respecting citizens’ rights and establishing a state of law must precede any policy to dismantle extremism, combat terrorism, fight corruption and eliminate torture as these practices nurture extremism and terrorism.
To achieve this aim, the Algerian state has for years tried to reduce corruption, reform management, destroy bureaucracy, establish good governance, solidify democracy, respect people’s choices throughout different elections and include the civil society in managing municipalities. Observers think these tools are efficient mechanism to confront extremist and takfiri ideologies.
A state of law includes all citizens who respect the state’s republican and constitutional system and reject using violence against their own people or resorting to violence to attain power. They are people who are aware that change can be achieved without resorting to violence. This is linked to allowing freedom of expression to all citizens.
Meanwhile, Algeria is making great efforts to reform its legal and judicial system and take the necessary measures that guarantee respecting human rights, as it approved different international charters and vows on the matter. Algeria has actually joined eight international human rights mechanisms and five regional ones.
Algeria also adopted a plan for institutional reform in order to expand the scope of democratic practices. The Algerian parliament approved four laws related to electoral laws, political parties, the media, and women’s representation in elected councils. This is in addition to legislative texts that focus on activating the role of civil society institutions.
Achieving National Reconciliation
The national reconciliation model in Algeria witnessed considerable development throughout three major phases: The phase of clemency (rahma) law issued in 1995, the phase of the civil harmony law issued in 1999 and the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation approved via a referendum in 2005.
The clemency and civil harmony laws and the charter for peace and national reconciliation played an important role in maintaining the harmony of the Algerian society and containing desires to avenge for the victims of the national tragedy inflicted by terrorists. The charter’s philosophy is based on spiritual and moral values that are rooted in the Algerian society. This is in addition to the values of tolerance and humanity and sacredness of human life.
The charter, which was issued in February 2006, focused on mechanism to compensate victims. The presidential decree 06 – 93 included the mechanism to compensate the victims of the national tragedy. The decree 06 – 94 focused on measures to compensate poor families, whose sons got involved in terrorist acts.
This arsenal of laws came to complete the legal framework present since 1999 and which addresses the victims of terrorism via the executive decree no 99 – 44 issued in February 1999 and which is linked to compensating the victims of terrorist attacks or who were harmed while combating terrorism.
Within this context, and in order to facilitate the re-establishment of civil peace, Algeria took several measures to rehabilitate terrorists who want to repent, give up their weapons and become part of the society again. Some confirm that these laws efficiently led some terrorists and some members of takfiri groups to repent. The following measures were taken: public lawsuits against people involved in terrorist acts were suspended, jail sentences were decreased and responsibility was taken for the family members of people killed by terrorist operations. Measures were also taken to exclude people who carried out assassinations, committed rape and carried out attacks using explosives in public places.
Measures were also taken to integrate prisoners, who were jailed on terrorist charges, in the society. This was carried out by subjecting all terrorist crimes to the Code of Criminal Procedure and not to the Emergency Law. This is in addition to not implementing executions.
Meanwhile in prisons, the state’s measures worked on limiting the influence of radical and takfiri prisoners or inmates involved in terrorist acts. The state, however, was keen that these prisoners are treated the same as others in terms of medical treatment, hygiene, food, family visitations and right to correspondence.
The national reconciliation policy contributed to preserving the Algerians’ lives and restored security. Algerian citizens could move from Tunisian borders in the East to the Moroccan borders in the West without being intercepted by terrorists.
It also allowed reassigning those who were expelled from their work due to their political affiliations. Those who were punished by their workplace or expelled from their jobs due to considerations pertaining to political problems were compensated. The state offered aid (death grant or benefits) to the families of terrorists who died while confronting security forces. This is in addition to granting women who were raped by terrorists the description “victims of terrorism.”
Combating Virtual Extremism
Algeria also restructured the police and founded means of communication between the police and citizens in order to restore people’s confidence in the police. The Algerian police efforts were focused on protecting youths from extremist ideology by detecting and monitoring sources of extremism, isolating radical groups and trying to control extremist ideas particularly in the virtual world.
Within this context, Algeria requested formulating an international charter that controls and codifies publishing in social media networks so terrorists do not use them as platforms to spread their ideas. This is why the Algerian police developed its capabilities in the field of monitoring digital technology and the internet. It trained special teams to pursue extremists on the internet, monitor all the data and information which may mislead the public opinion, specifically youths, and prevent terrorists from recruiting new members by cutting any ties they have with popular neighborhoods.
This is in addition to withdrawing all books that urge violence and extremism, dry out resources of terrorist and extremist propaganda and conduct researches to understand the psychological factors which stimulate individuals to join terrorist groups, particularly young men from poor neighborhoods considering they’re more exposed and more likely to be influenced by terrorist and radical propaganda.
Religious and Ideological Approaches
Dismantling extremism and fighting terrorism, according to the Algerian vision, believes in the necessity to restore consideration to the country’s religious reference and to values of moderation and tolerance and to protect the country’s cultural heritage from destructive ideas. This is in addition to the importance of restoring mosques from fanatics and takfiris, redefining the educational and social role of places of religious worship, preventing extremist and inciting speeches during Friday sermons and prohibiting all activities that promote extremist ideology and urges violence.
The state also decided organizing religious fatwas in Algeria in order to fight all wrong interpretations of Islamic heritage. A national observatory to combat religious extremism will be developed to discuss phenomena pertaining to religious extremism, propose solutions and provide decision makers with recommendations.
Algerian authorities rely a lot on Sufist methods and Quranic schools to make “the strategy of dismantling extremism and fighting terrorism” succeed. The state bets on them to spread the image of centrist Islam and confront extremist ideas among youths.
Within this context, Algeria via the Ministry of Awqaf is keen on monitoring the collection of Zakat funds and distributing them in a transparent manner on unemployed people who desire to establish small institutions. The state thus gives these people soft loans and prevents these funds from falling in the hands of extremists.
This is in addition to reforming educational curricula and purifying them from destructive ideas, as students currently study the values of the republic, democracy and citizenship. They also study respecting laws and other people and study the authority of the majority, minorities’ rights and values of national identity that has Arab and Muslim references. There is also Islamic education, which is inspired by the state’s religious references and the human and moral values which Islam called for.
In general, the integration between legal, security, religious and ideological approaches contributed to besieging violent extremism and decreasing the activity of extremist groups inside Algeria. This pushed these groups’ members to move to conflict zones in the Middle East. They also became incapable of carrying out terrorist operations inside Algeria. This strengthens the importance of securing borders with neighboring countries in order to prevent terrorists from infiltrating Algeria and to confront the return of cadres who joined ISIS and al-Qaeda in North Africa, Syria and Iraq.
