Algeria’s Tebboune: reassuring to some but criticized over rights, freedoms

Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune meets with France's President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) at the Borgo Egnazia resort, on the sideline of the G7 Summit hosted by Italy, in Savelletri, Apulia region, on June 13, 2024. (AFP)
Algeria's President Abdelmadjid Tebboune meets with France's President Emmanuel Macron (unseen) at the Borgo Egnazia resort, on the sideline of the G7 Summit hosted by Italy, in Savelletri, Apulia region, on June 13, 2024. (AFP)
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Updated 09 September 2024
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Algeria’s Tebboune: reassuring to some but criticized over rights, freedoms

Algeria’s Tebboune: reassuring to some but criticized over rights, freedoms
  • Tebboune claims he has since put Algeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, back on track, with the Ukraine-Russia war boosting natural gas prices to the country’s benefit as the continent’s top exporter
  • Tebboune, 78, was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate exceeding 60 percent, amid the massive Hirak pro-democracy protests

ALGIERS: Abdelmadjid Tebboune, re-elected for a second five-year term, has sought to reshape his bureaucratic image into that of a reassuring figure, though his record remains tarnished by criticism over freedoms and human rights.
He was re-elected Sunday with almost 95 percent of the vote and a “provisional average turnout” of 48 percent, according to the electoral authority ANIE.
He was facing moderate Islamist Abdelaali Hassani, 57, who won 3.17 percent of the vote, and socialist candidate Youcef Aouchiche, 41, who won 2.16 percent.
Tebboune, 78, was elected in December 2019 with 58 percent of the vote, despite a record abstention rate exceeding 60 percent, amid the massive Hirak pro-democracy protests.
The demonstrations, which began in February of that year and led to the ousting of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, under whom Tebboune served in various ministerial roles, sought a sweeping political overhaul.
With a calm demeanour and, to some, an affable appearance, Tebboune attempted to appease the protests, pardoning a few dozen jailed activists.
He has claimed to uphold the Hirak’s “blessed” spirit, which he says freed the North African country from an oppressive past.
Yet he oversaw the imprisonment of hundreds of other activists, banned the movement’s weekly rallies, and cracked down on dissent with support from the military.
Five years on, Tebboune’s tenure still reflects “a democratic deficit,” said Hasni Abidi, an analyst at the Geneva-based CERMAM Study Center.
Algerian authorities “have maintained their repression of civic space by continuing their brutal crackdown on human rights,” Amnesty International said.
The London-based rights group denounced “a zero-tolerance approach to dissenting opinions” in “a climate of fear and censorship.”
Tebboune, however, has avoided addressing such accusations, instead touting his social and economic credentials and pledging more if re-elected.

The incumbent president frequently refers to Bouteflika’s final years in power as the “mafia decade,” when control of Algeria’s energy wealth was concentrated in the hands of a “gang.”
During his tenure, several key figures from that era, including Bouteflika’s brother Said, were convicted on corruption charges and imprisoned.
Tebboune claims he has since put Algeria, Africa’s third-largest economy, back on track, with the Ukraine-Russia war boosting natural gas prices to the country’s benefit as the continent’s top exporter.
He has capitalized on this by promising free housing, more jobs, a higher minimum wage and increased social pensions.
During campaigning, Tebboune aimed to appear close to the people, even wearing traditional Tuareg clothing while rallying in the southern Sahara region.
He has also courted the young vote — about a third of registered voters — and pledged to create 450,000 jobs and increase monthly unemployment benefits if re-elected.
In March, he expressed pride in being called “ammi Tebboune” (“Uncle Tebboune“), deeming it even “a paternal relationship.”
Running as an independent, Tebboune has sought to distance himself from political parties, which have lost credibility among many Algerians.
His supporters say he has revived the presidency, which became largely invisible under Bouteflika after his 2013 stroke.
“The presidency has shifted from being a phantom institution to a real center of power,” said the analyst Abidi.
However, critics argue that Tebboune rose to power with military backing.
Like Bouteflika, he serves as defense minister and supreme commander of the armed forces and has never challenged the military’s political role, calling it “the backbone of the state.”
He is often seen with chief of staff Said Chengriha at public events.

A graduate of the National School of Administration, Tebboune climbed the ranks in the 1980s as a prefect in several provinces, eventually becoming part of the state apparatus that the Hirak protests later wanted to be reformed.
In 1991, he served as minister of local communities under president Chadli Bendjedid, who was ousted in early 1992 as the Algerian civil war began.
Dubbed the Black Decade, the war saw the military step in to halt legislative elections after the Islamic Salvation Front won the first round and vowed to establish religious rule.
Tebboune largely disappeared from the political scene during the war, which ended in 2002, but returned when Bouteflika was elected in 1999, briefly serving as communications minister.
He held various other portfolios until 2002, followed by a decade-long hiatus.
Tebboune returned in 2012 as housing minister and became prime minister in 2017, though he was dismissed after only three months, allegedly confronting oligarchs close to Bouteflika.
Many of those oligarchs were later jailed for corruption during Tebboune’s presidency.
Once a heavy smoker with a thin moustache, Tebboune, now married with three sons and two daughters, quit smoking in 2020 after contracting Covid-19 and spending two months hospitalized in Germany.
He returned to Germany in 2021 for foot surgery.
 

 


Qatar launches ‘air bridge’ for aid to war-struck Lebanon

Qatar launches ‘air bridge’ for aid to war-struck Lebanon
Updated 16 min 39 sec ago
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Qatar launches ‘air bridge’ for aid to war-struck Lebanon

Qatar launches ‘air bridge’ for aid to war-struck Lebanon
  • Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the Qatari aid “will help cover shortages of medical, relief and support supplies” and will be “a vital push” for the hundreds of thousands of displaced and injured people

BEIRUT, Lebanon: Doha launched an “air bridge” to transport medical supplies and food aid to Lebanon, a Qatari minister said in Beirut on Tuesday, more than two weeks into intense Israeli strikes on the country.
“Today we launched the air bridge with consecutive planes carrying food, shelter materials and medical supplies,” said Qatar’s Minister of State for International Cooperation Lolwah Al-Khater from a public hospital in Beirut.
She said Doha was working “on medium and long-term plans to contain this humanitarian crisis.”
Since September 23, Israel has launched an intense air campaign mainly targeting Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, killing more than 1,150 people and displacing upwards of a million people.
Lebanese Health Minister Firass Abiad said the Qatari aid “will help cover shortages of medical, relief and support supplies” and will be “a vital push” for the hundreds of thousands of displaced and injured people.
Prime Minister Najib Mikati also met the Qatari minister.
A French plane carrying medical aid also landed in Beirut Tuesday, one of several planeloads of aid that arrived at Lebanon’s only international airport since the escalation began.
The United Arab Emirates, Turkiye, Iraq, Egypt, Jordan and Romania are also among the countries that have sent aid to Lebanon.

 


Egypt, Jordan voice support for Lebanon in face of Israeli ‘aggression’

Egypt, Jordan voice support for Lebanon in face of Israeli ‘aggression’
Updated 21 min 29 sec ago
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Egypt, Jordan voice support for Lebanon in face of Israeli ‘aggression’

Egypt, Jordan voice support for Lebanon in face of Israeli ‘aggression’
  • Both Amman and Cairo have repeatedly warned that the region is on the brink of all-out war and have accused Israel of being given impunity by its Western allies to systematically violate international law

CAIRO: The foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan, the only two Arab countries to have made peace with Israel, expressed solidarity with Lebanon Tuesday in the face of Israel’s widening offensive.
Addressing a joint news conference in Cairo with his Egyptian counterpart Badr Abdelatty, Jordanian Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi called for an end to “Israeli aggression on three fronts” — in Gaza, in the occupied West Bank and now in Lebanon.
“We condemn the Israeli aggression on Lebanon, we condemn Israel’s shelling of the Lebanese capital, we condemn Israel’s killing of Lebanese citizens,” Safadi said.
Both Amman and Cairo have repeatedly warned that the region is on the brink of all-out war and have accused Israel of being given impunity by its Western allies to systematically violate international law.
“You have a country that finds itself above the law and unaccountable,” Abdelatty said.
Israel launched a wave of strikes against Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon on September 23, leaving at least 1,150 people dead since then and forcing more than a million people to flee.
While battling Hamas in Gaza, Israel has vowed to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow the return home of tens of thousands of Israelis displaced by Hezbollah’s cross-border fire in support of its Palestinian ally.

 


Morocco says ‘ready’ to repatriate irregular migrants in Europe

Morocco says ‘ready’ to repatriate irregular migrants in Europe
Updated 26 min 34 sec ago
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Morocco says ‘ready’ to repatriate irregular migrants in Europe

Morocco says ‘ready’ to repatriate irregular migrants in Europe
  • Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita on Tuesday said the kingdom was “ready to repatriate any irregular migrant who is certified to be Moroccan and who left from Moroccan territory”

RABAT, Morocco: Morocco on Tuesday said it was ready to take back its nationals who migrated irregularly to Europe, blaming host countries for repatriation delays.
It comes as French lawmakers have called for stricter migration policy after a Moroccan irregular migrant was arrested on suspicion of killing a 19-year-old French student last month.
French authorities had previously ordered his deportation in relation to a previous rape conviction, but Rabat has been blamed for not issuing a laissez-passer document allowing for his repatriation.
Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita on Tuesday said the kingdom was “ready to repatriate any irregular migrant who is certified to be Moroccan and who left from Moroccan territory.”
“Morocco is ready, but is the other party ready?” he said during a press conference, adding that Rabat did not “need to receive lessons” on the fight against irregular migration.
The murder suspect was arrested in Switzerland on September 25, four days after the body of a 19-year-old female student was found in the woods in western Paris.
He had already been convicted of a rape he committed in 2019 and was ordered to leave the country.
After his arrest, French authorities said Morocco did not respond to their request to issue a laissez-passer for his immediate repatriation.
Rabat later said the request had not been correctly issued.
France’s new right-wing government has pledged to clamp down on migration.
French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has recently vowed to introduce new migration regulations to “protect the French.”
 

 


How Israel’s war on Hezbollah is pushing Lebanon’s health system to the brink of collapse

How Israel’s war on Hezbollah is pushing Lebanon’s health system to the brink of collapse
Updated 13 sec ago
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How Israel’s war on Hezbollah is pushing Lebanon’s health system to the brink of collapse

How Israel’s war on Hezbollah is pushing Lebanon’s health system to the brink of collapse
  • Hospitals already crippled by grinding economic crisis are now overwhelmed by wounded people
  • Israeli airstrikes on Syrian border and close to Beirut’s international airport have further disrupted aid deliveries

LONDON: Lebanon’s healthcare system, already crippled by years of economic crisis, has been brought to the brink of collapse since Israel’s unprecedented attack on Hezbollah’s communications network in mid-September and the wave of airstrikes targeting its leaders and weapons caches.

According to some reports, several health facilities have been damaged by Israeli airstrikes. Last month, the World Health Organization said the “escalation of violence” since Sept. 23 had forced at least 37 health centers to close their doors.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry also said dozens of medical workers have been killed, with the WHO reporting 28 deaths in a single 24-hour period last week.

Lebanon was rocked last month by two attacks on Hezbollah’s communications network, which saw pagers and walkie-talkies carried by militia members explode simultaneously.

The devices, reportedly booby-trapped by Israel, exploded in public areas, killing 20 people, including children, and injuring 450 others, according to the Health Ministry, overwhelming hospitals across Lebanon.

A truck and ambulance burn after Israeli airstrikes hit a group of paramedics outside a hospital in Marjayoun, south Lebanon, Friday, Oct. 4, 2024. (AP)

Soon afterward, Israel began pounding Lebanon in its pursuit of Hezbollah, its leadership, and its weapons. The relentless airstrikes have killed at least 1,250 people and injured more than 5,000, according to Lebanon’s Health Ministry.

Israel and Hezbollah began trading fire along the Lebanese border on Oct. 8, a day after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel that killed 1,200 and saw 250 taken hostage, prompting Israel’s retaliatory operation in Gaza.

Hezbollah rocket fire has displaced nearly 60,000 people from Israel’s north. The Israeli government says its stated aim is to push Hezbollah back to the Litani River, about 18 km from the Israeli border, which would allow displaced Israeli civilians to return to their homes.

Over the past two weeks, there have been reports of damage to healthcare facilities in Lebanon. In one such incident earlier this month, an airstrike on Marjayoun Hospital in the south knocked the facility out of service and killed dozens of staff.

Flames and smoke rise from an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon’s Dahiyeh, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)

Mounes Kalakesh, Marjayoun’s director, told AP news agency that the Israeli military did not warn the government hospital before the strike. Emergency Director Shoshana Mazraani described the facility’s ensuing closure as a “tragedy for the region.”

Israel’s Arabic-language military spokesman, Avichay Adraee, accused Hezbollah of using ambulances to transport weapons and fighters, but he did not provide evidence to support the claim.

Lebanon’s Health Ministry said on Oct. 3 that 40 paramedics, firefighters and health workers had been killed in Israeli attacks over a period of three days.

Last week, the International Lebanese Medical Association appealed to the WHO to pressure Israel to halt what it called a “massacre” of Lebanon’s health workers.

IN NUMBERS

  • 37 Lebanese health facilities forced to close owing to Israeli strikes, according to WHO.
  • 97 Rescue workers killed since last October, according to Lebanon’s health minister.

Tania Baban, the Lebanon country director of the US-based charity MedGlobal, said the healthcare situation in Lebanon today is almost indescribable.

“The healthcare system is in a very difficult situation,” she told Arab News, stressing that if further hospitals are knocked out of action, the sector may not be able to respond to the mounting number of wounded.

“Even if they don’t get targeted, if there are still going to be attacks that are this intense on the south and in Dahieh (Beirut’s southern suburbs), that’s going to create a strain.”

Lebanon has suffered successive blows since the 2019 financial crisis, which severely impacted the provision of essential public services.

Ambulances carrying the bodies of civil defense workers killed in an Israeli strike drive amid the destruction in the southern Lebanese town of Tayr Dibba, on September 29, 2024. (AFP)

“The economic crisis caused the devaluation of the local currency and inflation, which caused some serious problems in the procurement of medical equipment and supplies as well as medications,” said Baban.

“When the government announced bankruptcy, it wasn’t able to purchase supplies for the hospitals, so the hospitals were not able to cater for the patients,” she added.

The economic situation also impacted livelihoods, leaving many people in Lebanon unable to afford private medical care.

Lebanon has been in the grips of a financial crisis since late 2019, brought on in part by the mountain of debt the government had built up since the end of the civil war in 1990. In April 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Saade Chami declared the state and its central bank bankrupt.

Ambulances are surrounded by people at the entrance of the American University of Beirut Medical Center, on September 17, 2024. (AFP)

The World Bank reclassified Lebanon as a lower-middle-income country, down from upper-middle-income status in July 2022, after the country’s gross domestic product per capita dropped by 36.5 percent between 2019 and 2021.

Aid agencies in Lebanon are also concerned about the welfare of the approximately 1.2 million people who have been displaced by Israeli strikes and incursions in the south, the Bekaa Valley, Beirut’s southern suburbs, and Baalbek.

MedGlobal’s Baban says the scale of displacement in Lebanon has further strained medical services. Inadequate shelter, overcrowding, and the onset of winter heighten the risk of disease outbreaks.

“We’re worried about infectious diseases,” she said. “Flu season is on the way, COVID, the possibility of hepatitis A if they don’t have access to clean drinking water, and the possibility of, God forbid, cholera.”

Displaced families take refuge on central Beirut's Ain Al-Mreisseh seaside promenade on October 7, 2024. (AFP)

Giacomo Baldini, the Lebanon country director of the non-profit Relief International, said that while his team is providing hygiene kits and medical outreach in Beirut, Tripoli, and the Bekaa Valley, “the need for clean water, hot food, and medical supplies is huge, and will only increase.”

He wrote in a first-hand account from Beirut shared with Arab News: “We are hoping to provide mental health support as soon as possible. There are simply not enough skilled professionals in Lebanon to provide the amount of support needed.”

Baban said: “The Ministry of Health is doing its best to reach out to stakeholders, including international NGOs such as MedGlobal, to bring in supplies from abroad.”

The ministry’s plan is to bring in additional resources while this is still possible, she said. “He (the health minister) doesn’t want people to procure and purchase supplies locally so as not to deplete the supplies we already have in the country.”

A child wounded during Israeli bombardment rests at a hospital in the southern Lebanese village of Saksaqiyeh on September 26, 2024. (AFP)

However, the intensifying Israeli strikes on southern Beirut, where part of the Beirut Rafic Hariri International Airport is situated, pose a significant risk to the delivery of supplies.

“The health system’s capacity in Lebanon is deteriorating,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said in a post on X on Oct. 3. “Medical supplies cannot be delivered due to the almost complete closure of Beirut’s airport.”

He called for the “urgent facilitation of flights to deliver health supplies to Lebanon” as “lives depend on it.”

Baban of MedGlobal said NGOs are struggling to raise sufficient funds to alleviate the pressure on Lebanon’s health system amid the escalating hostilities and worsening humanitarian crisis.

And while there are donors providing “shipments of medical supplies that can be shipped into the country,” the suspension of flights by many carriers has hindered the process.

Israeli airstrikes on the main border crossing between Syria and Lebanon have also obstructed the movement of supplies and medicines into Lebanon.

On Oct. 4, Israeli airstrikes targeted the Masnaa border crossing, impeding civilians trying to flee and disrupting humanitarian operations, the international monitor Human Rights Watch said in a statement.

One of the biggest challenges Lebanon’s hospitals could soon face is maintaining a consistent power supply. Most still have access to fuel for generators and many have installed solar panels. However, as the colder months approach, they may have more challenges.

A man rides his scooter as he drives on the debris of destroyed buildings that were hit by Israeli airstrikes in Dahiyeh, Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024. (AP)

“So far, we’re okay with fuel, but if that changes or the prices go up, then it might create a problem because in winter, you can’t depend on solar panels,” said Baban. “If fuel prices go up, it will be expensive to purchase fuel to keep hospitals running.”

The people working tirelessly to keep hospitals operational are also at risk of exhaustion.

Baban warned that while many doctors remain in the country, “they’re obviously already on the brink of being overworked after these sharp and rapid escalations.”

 


WHO warns of possible Lebanon disease outbreaks 

WHO warns of possible Lebanon disease outbreaks 
Updated 59 min 46 sec ago
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WHO warns of possible Lebanon disease outbreaks 

WHO warns of possible Lebanon disease outbreaks 

GENEVA: A World Health Organization official warned on Tuesday of disease outbreaks in Lebanon due to crowded conditions in displacement shelters and hospital closures as medics have fled Israel’s assault.

Israeli forces have begun ground operations in the southwest of Lebanon, escalating a year-long conflict with Iran-backed group Hezbollah that has killed over 1,000 people in the past two weeks and triggered a mass flight.

“We are facing a situation where there is a much higher risk of disease outbreaks, such as acute watery diarrhea, hepatitis A, and a number of vaccine-preventable diseases,” the WHO’s Ian Clarke, deputy incident manager for Lebanon, told a Geneva press briefing by video link from Beirut.

The UN health agency has already warned that the system is overstretched and so far five hospitals in the country have closed and four are only partly functional, Clarke said. He added that hospitals had been shut because medics had either fled the fighting or been asked to evacuate by Lebanese authorities.