Notes
(1) The city started its armed resistance at the beginning of the French occupation (1830) and continued fighting until the death of Sheikh Musa, leader of the uprising, in 1848. In December 1852, half the town was decimated by resisting a siege by General Pelissier, General Bouscaren and General Valentini. Krim Belkacem (1922-1970), one of the main leaders of the Algerian revolution (1954-1962), said that he learnt the meaning of patriotism in Laghouat. Laghouat is also the birthplace of the Sufi Tidjania order and has been a breeding ground of educated men.
(2) The core group was made up of activists who had served in World War II, including the martyr Keririche nicknamed ‘Qhiwa’. During one of its first operations, this small group shot down a French reconnaissance aircraft at Settafa, 60 kilometres south of Laghouat.
(3) He escaped an assassination attempt by an armed group under the command of ‘Colonel’ Bellounis in the town of Seridja, 10 km from Laghouat.
(4) Official Gazette of the Republic of Algeria, 24 September 1965, p. 853.
(5) Official Gazette of the Republic of Algeria, 19 November 1971, p. 1239.
(6) Illustrated history of the Ecole Normale d’Alger-Bouzaréa.
(7) The books he published include: ‘The states of the Muslim West in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, ‘The Abdulwadid Kingdom at the time of Abu Musa Hammu I and Abu Tachfin I’, and ‘The Sultanate of Abdulwadid in the fourteenth century’.
(9) Ibid. The maps in this book were drawn and commented on by Amar Dhina.
(10) He holds the ‘Certificat d’aptitude au professorat de l’enseignement supérieur’ (CAPES), which refers to a degree enabling its holder to teach in higher education. See www.sidielhadjaissa.com.
(11) It was renamed ‘IbnRushd College’ after independence.
(12) See www.sidielhadjaissa.com.
(15) The titles of his published books include ‘Statesmen and warriors’, ‘Caliphs and rulers’, ‘Illustrious women in Islam’, ‘Major figures of Islam, Turning points in the history of Islam: From the Battle of Badr to the attack of Algiers by Charles V’, ‘Knowledge of Arabic literature’, ‘The Cities of the Muslim East and West’, ‘Manual for spoken Arabic beginners’. His articles include items such as ‘Notes on the phonetics and morphology of Arba speaking’, Revue Africaine, Vol. 82 (1938) pp. 313-353, and ‘Arabic texts from the south of Algiers’, Revue Africaine, Vol. 84 (1940) pp. 93-113.
(16) Several Algerian physicists remember him as a smiling, courteous and modest student who used to get the top marks in all exams without too much effort (private communication).
(17) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_C._C._Ting
(18) Positron-Electron Tandem Ring Accelerator.
(19) German electron synchrotron.
(20) http://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/14861/17850868.pdf?sequence=1
(21) ETH stands for Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich. This department has seven winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics including Röntgen, Einstein and Pauli.
(22) See Physics Reports Vol. 236, Nos. 1 & 2 (1993) pp. 1-146.
(23) https://hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3148:liste-des-publications-scientifiques-de-mourad-dhina&catid=94:hoggar&Itemid=36
(24) Anta is an acronym for عملية نقل التكنولوجيا إلى الجزائر. It has also the meaning of ‘you’ to evoke personal responsibility.
(25) Private communication with Algerian physicists.
(27) Several causes have been attributed to the riots: the end of historic legitimacy of the regime, facade socialism, feelings of injustice, the arrogance of the FLN leaders, the impunity of law enforcers, open corruption, and violent suppression of demands for freedom.
(28) ‘Octobre: Ils parlent’, Le Matin, Algiers 1988; A. Charef, Algérie 1988: Un Chahut de gamins, Laphomic, Algiers 1990; Special report of the daily Le Matin of 5 October 2000.
(29) Y Bedjaoui, A Aroua and M Aït-Larbi (eds), An Inquiry into the Algerian Massacres, Hoggar, Geneva 1999.
(30) Ali Yahia Abdenour, ‘La grande question est de savoir comment l’armée va réagir au lendemain des élections législatives’, El Watan week-end, 06 January 2012.
(31) Comité Algérien des Militants Libres de La Dignité Humaine et des Droits de l’Homme (CAMLDHDH – Algerian committee for human dignity and human rights), Le Livre Blanc sur la Répression en Algérie (1991-1995), Tome 1, 2 et Supplément, Hoggar, Genève 1995 & 1996 ; منتدى باحثي شمال إفريقيا تحقيق عن التعذيب في الجزائر، دار هوقار للنشر، جينيف 2003.
(32) A. Ali-Yahia, (President of LADDH), ‘Algeria, October 1988 to October 1998: A Ten Year Crisis’, Lecture at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 5 October 1998; Mr Khelili, (president of National Union of Algerian Lawyers), ‘Disappearances after abduction by the security forces’, University of Geneva, 26 October 1999; R. Fisk, ‘One man’s heroic fight against a regime with a taste for torture’, The Independent, 30 October 1997; Algeria-Watch, ‘Disappearances in Algeria following the abduction by the security forces’, March 1999; Algeria-Watch and Salah-Eddine Sidhoum, ‘Enforced disappearances in Algeria: a crime that endures’, January 2007, updated in January 2009.
(33) http://www.internal-displacement.org/publications/global-overview-2010-africa-algeria.pdf
(34) Report prepared by the Algerian committee for human dignity and human rights, which includes lawyers, doctors and advocates of human rights. It is available in PDF format at www.hoggar.org.
(35) See the French state document here: https://www.hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=589:islam-&id=2541
(36) Yacine Benlemnouar, from the Arabic-language weekly Almouhaqiq, asked Mourad Dhina about the claim, in the Algerian press, that he had a golden salary and lived in a villa in a luxurious area of Geneva. Mourad Dhina replied: ‘Regarding my financial situation, I assure you that if I had wanted a comfortable life, I would have taken a different path. Material life came to me with open arms; I had an important job in Switzerland until the 1990s, after I got my Ph.D. from the most prestigious American university before the age of 26. After the coup, I could not enjoy a comfortable life while my brothers were getting killed. I paid a high price for my position and I pray to God that what I did was only for Him. To this day I do not have a passport or official documents, be they Algerian or otherwise. My refusal to compromise with Western governments has deprived me of my most basic rights. And I seek assistance from no one except God. My coming to Switzerland was the will of God, and I shall leave this country with His permission, and I accept in advance what God has in store for me. Thank God, I have never compromised my principles. I assure you, Sir, I do not live a villa. I live in an apartment in a building that people regard as of the lowest quality in Switzerland.’ (Yacine Benlemnouar, Al-Mouhaqiq (Investigator), No. 40, 16-22 December 2006).
(37) This propaganda depicts FIS members as ‘terrorists’, ‘criminals’, ‘barbarians’, ‘fascists’, ‘green Khmers’, ‘fanatics’, ‘fundamentalists’, ‘madmen’, ‘rats’ ,’rabid dogs’, ‘vermin’, ‘Hydra’, ‘insects’, ‘rascals’, ‘wretched’, ‘filthy’, ‘nauseating’, ‘AIDS carriers’, ‘cancerous’, and ‘parasites’ to be ‘eradicated’. These characterizations suggest that FIS members are not human and therefore they can be destroyed. It is known that this language often precedes and accompanies genocides.
(38) Swiss Federal Court Case # X.1/1996/ROD.
(39) Yacine Benlemnouar, Al-Mouhaqiq (Investigator), No. 40, 16-22 December, 2006.
(40) See for example Arezki Aït-Larbi, « Assassinat de Tahar Djaout : un crime sans coupables », Le Matin 26 May 2001, Monika Borgmann, Saïd Mekbel, une mort à la lettre, Téraèdre & Dar al-Jadeed, Paris/Beyrouth, 2008, François Gèze, ‘Algérie: révélations posthumes du journaliste Saïd Mekbel’, 27 February 2008, http://www.rue89.com/2008/02/27/algerie-revelations-posthumes-du-journaliste-said-mekbel
(41) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcpWVp-aYFo As an example of the dehumanising discourse which was used to justify morally the repression, Mourad Dhina was also falsely accused of condoning the attacks in Paris in 1995. Investigative French journalists attribute these crimes to the Algerian military intelligence (DRS) (see JB Rivoire and Romain Icard, ‘Attentats de Paris: On ne pouvait pas les empêcher’, Inquiry, Canal +, ‘90 minutes’, November 2002.). In this regard, Mourad Dhina says: ‘I was at the receiving end of the same kind of criticism, in an interview with a French TV station, following the 1995 Paris attacks. The two channels, TF1 and Antenne 2, came to interview me. Their question was: “Why do you not condemn the attacks?” I said: “The problem is not the condemnation of your attacks, the problem for me, as an Algerian, is why you keep silent about forty thousand deaths?” At the time it was believed that there were forty thousand dead. We now know the number was unfortunately much higher than that. I then said: “You are silent on the massacres that take place in my country and you want me to mourn the eight dead in Paris.” Of course, this was not meant to be a rejoicing on anyone’s death in the world. I simply wanted to say that what was hurting me at the time, what made me really sad was what was going on in my country.’ See the above-mentioned video recording.
(42) https://hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=569%3Ale-putsch-et-la-repression-&id=3133%3Acontrat-national&Itemid=13
(44) https://hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=569%3Ale-putsch-et-la-repression-&id=3131%3Amanifeste-du-fis-pour-la-justice-et-la-paix&Itemid=13
(46) https://hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=612:activites-&id=2547:les-dimensions-reelles-de-la-crise-algerienne
(47) https://hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=570%3Alere-de-bouteflika-&id=3132%3Aactes-du-congres-du-martyr-hachani&Itemid=13
(48) http://homepage.eircom.net/~irelandalgeriagroup/
(49) https://hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=569%3Ale-putsch-et-la-repression-&id=3127%3Ale-fis-du-peuple&Itemid=13
(50) Open letter to members and supporters of the Islamic Front for Salvation, available at link: http://www.algeria-watch.org/fr/article/pol/partis/fis_lettre.htm
(52) See the press release of Mourad Dhina on24 September 2005 available on the link: http://www.algeria-watch.org/fr/article/pol/amnistie/communique_dhina.htm, and his contributed paper in the book, « Quelle réconciliation pour l’Algérie ? » (Hoggar, 2005), i.e. ‘What reconciliation in Algeria?’ The paper is available here :https://hoggar.org/index.php?option=com_flexicontent&view=items&cid=610:chapitres-quelle-reconciliation-pour-lalgerie&id=2570:taire-la-verite-cest-laisser-la-porte-ouverte-au-renouvellement-des-massacres
(53) See the Charter of the Rachad Movement, available at the link: http://www.rachad.org/fr/component/jdownloads/finish/3-documents-rachad/4-charter-of-the-rachad-movement
(57) www.rachad.org
(58) www.alkarama.org. Before this position, Mourad Dhina worked as a consultant in Information Technology for a private Swiss company.
(59) http://www.cordoue.ch/index.php?option=com_content&task=category§ionid=4&id=15&Itemid=25
(61) Mourad Dhina, ‘The Non-violence in question’, in Non-Violent Political Change, in preparation.
(62) In a testimony of this typical aspect of Mourad Dhina’s character, the journalist Yacine Benlemnouar introduces an interview with him with these words: ‘When interviewing Mourad Dhina […] one feels one is discussing with an experienced politician and a man of society. Despite our attempts to provoke him with many questions and accusations, he listened to our words with tolerance and defended himself and his ideas calmly.’ See the Algerian weekly Al-Mouhaqiq (Investigator), No. 40, 16-22 December 2006.
(63) www.rachad.tv
(64) Alija Ali Izetbegovic, Islam Between East and West, American Trust Publications, Indianapolis 1985.
(65) Ian Hamel, ‘Mourad Dhina a quitté discrètement le FIS’, Le Matin (Switzerland), 14 October 2006.
(66) Marie Verdier, La Croix, 26 January 2012.
1 Comment
jail of brains
you know to start my words Algeria is between hands of their sons witch mean before Independence of Algeria the French colonials pass deals with khalad nezar, chadli, touati, lamari, guenaizia, belkheir, kamel abderahman and company to quit the army station and joint liberal Algerian army for infiltration and they find one thirsty for power boumediene witch has organized the crimes against honest revolutionary and keep that dirty peoples to command the Algerian army so since that the Algeria enter in black under pass the strategy if we can call it strategy is to keep mouth of all intellectual Algerian clause under of course of french army benediction, so our brother Professor Mourad Dhina is victim of that legacy as many others so the plan is clear to negotiate with there homologous that we have cash the man now if you want to do deal with us we can discuss about the new Mondale order they knows that peoples most of them they are near their temples so they want know the new names they will handle the French flames in Algeria especially in army and services.
I think the Algerian services with French services there is some coast to be paid against head of Professor Dhina as for example how was behind of bobs crime because by legal way the french authorities they don’t have any right to arrest Professor especially he enter the territory legally the falsifier accusation doesn’t fit any lawyer can say that it is illegal what the french services toke action against Professor Dhina.
So we have to be patient and start to be unified as Algerian intellectuals to rescue our country for army mafia and algerianjewish as belkheir, touati, troudi,kamel abderahman, guenazia, zerhouni, madame khali, and list is so long