President Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s recent remarks inviting Algerians living abroad to return project an image of openness and reconciliation. Yet in the absence of clear and binding guarantees against arbitrary detention, unfair trials, and politically motivated prosecutions, Tebboune’s conciliatory gesture is likely illusory. By concurrently reiterating accusations about ‘foreign agents’ and ‘treason’, the President reinforces the very security narrative that has long been used to target dissidents—undermining confidence in his appeal.
In a televised interview broadcast in February 2026, President Tebboune called on ‘all Algerians living abroad’ to return to the country. When addressing young migrants who had left irregularly, he added: ‘As long as you made a small mistake, come back. God forgives what is past.’
President Tebboune drew a sharp distinction between the welcomed returnees and those accused of links with foreign intelligence services; such links, he stated, constitute an irrevocable act of treason subject to prosecution upon return. The invitation he extends is therefore not unconditional but embedded within a political-security framework that would put returnees at risk of arrest and trial.
Under international human rights law, the right to return to one’s own country is unconditional and cannot be dependent on discretionary political or security assessments. Any state encouraging returns must therefore provide clear, public, and legally binding safeguards that returnees will be protected from arbitrary arrest, prosecution, and judicial harassment. Such safeguards are particularly essential for individuals who are engaged in political activism, journalism or peaceful criticism while abroad. In the absence of these protections, calls for return put dissidents at high risk of retaliation rather than facilitating safe and dignified reintegration.
This risk is compounded by the widespread prosecutions and convictions in absentia against dissidents and activists abroad, often on speech and national security grounds. The Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS)’s 2024 report, A Web of Intimidation: The Algerian Government’s Global Crackdown on Dissent, documents how national security and terrorism-related provisions are used to criminalize peaceful expression and association, enable cross-border judicial harassment, and frame dissent as ‘foreign-backed.’ President Tebboune’s references to
‘informants’ and ‘treason’ echo this entrenched narrative, signaling continuity rather than policy reform.
Recent cases inside Algeria reinforce these concerns. In February 2026, journalist Mustapha Bendjama was prosecuted for reporting on a police shooting case despite his reporting contributing to accountability. Trade unionist Ali Mammeri was arrested in 2025, held incommunicado, and sentenced under counterterrorism provisions linked to his civic and online activities. Poet and human rights defender Mohamed Tadjadit remains imprisoned following successive prosecutions tied to his peaceful expression. Although holding Algerian citizenship, prominent human rights defender Nassera Dutour, president of the Collective of Families of the Disappeared in Algeria, was arbitrarily denied entry and forcibly returned to Paris upon her arrival in Algiers in July 2025.
These cases illustrate how ‘national security’ and accusations of ‘foreign links’ are mobilized against legitimate civic activity: the same framing invoked by the President to exclude some exiles from his call to return. In this context, assurances to Algerians abroad remain insufficient absent structural reforms and binding safeguards, including protection from arbitrary arrest and the repeal of convictions stemming from unfair proceedings.
Recommendations
CIHRS calls on the Algerian authorities to:
- Publicly guarantee that no Algerian returning from abroad will face arrest or prosecution for the peaceful exercise of fundamental rights.
- Ensure equal judicial treatment for Algerians abroad and within the country.
- Adopt a general and comprehensive amnesty covering all individuals prosecuted solely for peaceful expression, association, assembly, journalism, or trade union activity.
- End the use of terrorism and national security provisions to criminalize dissent.
- Immediately halt unfair trials and investigate due process violations documented by UN mechanisms.
Until these measures are implemented, calls for return cannot be considered genuine steps toward reconciliation and diaspora Algerians exercising their right of return will be at risk of rights violations including unjust prosecution and imprisonment.
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