The Counter Terrorism Law System in Algeria: To Serve and Protect or to Control and Oppress?

Algeria was the first state in the Maghreb area that adopted a specific anti-terrorist law in September 1992, after few months of the beginning of the bloody civil war that upset the country for more than a decade and caused over 200.000 deaths. Based on the Egyptian model of anti-terrorism law, the Algerian law was the first attempt in the region to create a juridical instrument conceived specifically to place the fight against terrorism in a legal framework, but also the first law that described terrorist acts in such vague terms that it jeopardized political and civil freedoms, as well as human rights. Unmodified until our days and joined by other laws and constitutional amendments, the legislation allowed the regime to curb not only the wave of terrorism and survive to the jihadist guerrilla, but, in the long run, it turned out to be an efficient tool used to suppress political dissidence and control or limit the democratic demands by the Algerian people.