Human Rights and Algeria's Presidential Elections

Human Rights Watch issued a call today for human rights issues to occupy a central role in Algeria's presidential elections and in the post-election period. In a briefing paper released today, Human Rights Watch condemned the fact that no foreign election monitors have been authorized to observe the elections and that foreign journalists are either denied visas or restricted in their movements while in the country. The backgrounder also surveys the political violence that has claimed an estimated 77,000 lives since 1992, as well as the abductions and "disappearances" of thousands of Algerians, and government policies toward access to information that have dramatically limited independent monitoring of human rights conditions.