HL Deb 18 March 2002 vol 632 cc115-6WA
Lord Avebury

asked Her Majesty's Government:

Whether they will ask the Government of Algeria to consider whether their law on defamation, under which the Appeal Court of Relizane has sentenced Mohamed Smain, president of the Relizane Branch of the League for the Defence of Human Rights, to a year's imprisonment for repeating statements made by relatives of "disappeared" against the former mayor of Relizane, is compatible with the human rights provisions of the European Union-Algeria Association Agreement; and whether they will seek to persuade the Government of Algeria to invite the United Nations Human Rights Commission's Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary and Arbitrary Executions to visit Algeria. [HL3123]

Baroness Amos

The EU/Algeria Association Agreement has not been signed or ratified and so is not in force. The first step towards bringing the agreement into force will be at the signature of the agreement scheduled for late April 2002. The EU will take the opportunity at this signing ceremony to raise with Algeria its concerns, including on human rights issues.

The UK Government regularly raise their concerns about human rights violations in Algeria, most recently during the visit there of my honourable friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, the Member for Exeter, on 23–24 September 2001. It is HMG policy to encourage all governments to co-operate with UN mechanisms. We continue to urge the Algerian Government to comply fully with their obligations under international law on the investigation of human rights abuses, including requests to visit by UN Special Rapporteurs. The UK, with EU partners, has also submitted a number of cases to the Algerian authorities. The Algerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has offered information on some of these cases, but both we and our EU partners will continue to press for full answers.