Press Release

Kabylia is facing yet another wave of crack down and oppression which is in line with the achievement of the goals of the "zero Kabyle" [1] project. Hundreds of citizens are languishing unjustly in Algerian jails, some of them with no trial in sight. Others are forced into exile or forced to leave their villages to escape kidnapping and coercion. Added to the arbitrariness of the unjust and abusive incarcerations is a judiciary that is controlled by the regime, and whose nature is anti-Kabyle and revengeful. Completely under orders of the regime, its investigations are built on bogus and empty case files during which the most basic rights of the defense are denied. The Algerian State started to innovate in judicial matters and created the "crime of Kabylness". A systemic discrimination that feeds a despicable anti-kabylism.

The random and arbitrary arrests, imprisonments and death sentences imposed on activists and ordinary Kabyle citizens, most often qualified as “terrorists”, are designed to silence and terrorize. Judicial parodies, contrary to the universal principles of law, lead to absurd convictions. Hundreds of Kabyle activists and citizens are abused, mistreated and humiliated ; some of them are tortured and sometimes even raped. Beyond the injustice and the consequences they endure under rogue laws, such as Article 87 (bis) [2] which criminalizes all peaceful action, it is Kabylia, its steadiness and its ancestral values that are targeted with unprecedented violence.

After more than forty years of struggle for our freedoms, Kabylia is today sinking into an infamous and despicable military and religious dictatorship, coupled with an openly accepted state racism. The Algerian regime via its security services, all bodies combined, laid a thick lead blanket over Kabylia. Peaceful local, cultural, intellectual and political initiatives, that are not controlled by the state, are criminalized. Civil society actors are persecuted and silenced. The Algerian regime has de facto established a state of emergency in Kabylia by suspending all rights and freedoms, including that of movement, for thousands of Kabyle citizens.

Faced with state terrorism in Algeria, the Kabyle diaspora in France, an integral part of Kabylia, took the initiative to form a collective to act and react to the worrying situation that Kabylia is going through. At the end of the discussion held on January 8, 2023 in Montreuil, citizens of the diaspora decided to form a Collective entitled "Collective Action for Kabylia" (CAP-K). The establishment of this Action Collective aims above all to pool the energies of the Kabyle diaspora independently of its diverse political leanings. The Collective, made up of association organizers, artists and activists from all walks of life, anxious to act in favor of our Kabylia, has set itself the main objectives of urgently ending Kabylia’s isolation, of clearly conveying its solidarity and of tearing down the wall of silence when it suffers violence and humiliation.

The gravity of the situation calls on our conscience and urgent mobilization to put an end to the repression. Whatever our convictions and our visions on the political future of Kabylia, we have a duty to act in its favor, for the defense and safeguard of its dignity and freedom. By putting the interest of Kabylia above all other considerations, the “Collective Action for Kabylia” remains open to all persons of goodwill. The collective also intends to coordinate its actions as much as possible with other actors of the Kabyle diaspora in France and elsewhere in other countries in Europe and America.

Collectif "Action pour la Kabylie" (ApK)
Paris, January 11, 2023