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Algeria: SOS Eviction challenges the authorities on violations of the right to housing

Algérie, SOS Expulsion interpelle les autorités sur les  violations du droit au logement

Algeria, 3,000 children thrown onto the streets in one year

The SOS Eviction Committee  was created in July 2009 under the aegis of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, headed by Hocine Zahouane, following the renewed outbreak of evictions of families from their homes for various reasons.  Right from the start, the Committee has attempted to attract the attention of the highest authorities in the country through requests and demands for support, but the state continues to turn a deaf ear.

Algérie, SOS Expulsion interpelle les autorités sur les  violations du droit au logement

Algeria, what remains after the evictions

The Committee has held eight press conferences since July 2009, but there has been no response from the authorities.  A statement of demands was even drafted and published in the press but still no response.  The Committee opposes the authorities' rehousing policy because the state is in the process of rehousing inhabitants of illegally constructed buildings; this causes a real problem, because the state is thus encouraging people to live outside the law instead of giving priority to families evicted from their homes, who find themselves homeless from one day to the next, or are forced to rent, an option that is not within the reach of Algerian citizens.

Algérie, SOS Expulsion interpelle les autorités sur les  violations du droit au logement

Algeria, the police knock at the door

The Committee has questioned the authorities on this phenomenon that takes away citizens’ dignity and destroys whole families.  We are thereby denouncing the unlawful evictions of a number of Algerian families and appealing to the President of the Republic.

What we find particularly offensive is that the pleas of the families in distress fall on deaf ears.  “Nobody responds to the grievances of the citizens,” but the cause “is the mafia of the construction industry which is behind this phenomenon.  Some people own several houses while others do not even have a roof to put over their children’s heads”. 

There is also another serious problem in that a family that has been evicted no longer has the right to apply for housing because it loses all its rights in relation to the local authorities: a certificate of residence has to be included in a request for housing, whereas an evicted family no longer has the right to this certificate.

Algérie, SOS Expulsion interpelle les autorités sur les  violations du droit au logement

Algeria, police-led evictions

The Committee has received only 700 cases up until now, but, in reality, the figure of 700 registered cases “is not realistic.  The number has to be higher because there are definitely hundreds of other families who are unaware of the existence of the Committee and others still who are quite simply afraid to register.”

The evicted families are in a very serious situation, and what is most alarming is that everybody knows that Algeria is a country that has the means to meet its citizens' needs , given that it generates a high revenue from oil.  It is not normal for a rich county to produce poor people, neither is it normal for some people to own several homes while others have none.  It could be said that there are Algerians and then there are super-Algerians.


Перевод этого текста  выполнен  добровольцами из группы за жилищные права без границ МСЖ:

Nicholas Herowych, Philippa Bowe Smith

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