Karim Tabbou; A Key Algerian Figure, Detained as a “Governmental” Activist
For weeks, the Algerian authorities still detain one of the most prominent figures of the popular movement; his name is "Karim Tabbou". He was arrested on April 28, 2021, after a complaint filed against him by a "government human rights official, the President of the National Council for Human Rights, Bouzid Lazhari, accusing him of "insulting .Tabou said, before his arrest, that the Movement for Democracy in Algeria is still fighting despite the repression of the regime.
The Continuation Of Repression
During his appearance before the representative of the Republic of "Bir Murad Rais" court, on April 29, for interrogation of the charges against him, including "threatening the integrity of the nation's unity" and "violating the sanctity of graves," Tabou told the republic's attorney, "I did not insult, and what happened was outside the cemetery, not inside. He added, "In my view, no one has the right to politically exploit the graves, and Lazhari took advantage of that and declared it to public media and this provoked me and forced me to intervene." Karim Tabou Tabou, 47, is a former lawmaker who became a prominent figure in the movement after being imprisoned from September 2019 to July 2020.
The political opponent received a summons from the police for investigation after a complaint against him by Lazhari, claiming that he was "harassed" while attending the funeral ceremony for the prominent human rights lawyer, Ali Yahya Abdel Nour, with "hostile chants" that forced him to leave the cemetery.Lazhari told local media that he had been "insulted ‘’and that he would resort "to the court."
After Tabou was arrested, the Algerian League for Human Rights expressed, in a statement, its "concern" about "the repression and the escalation of conflict targeting opposition faces in the popular movement." The country's authorities called for ‘’stopping harassment and arbitrary arrests that affect peaceful activists in the movement, and journalists."Algerian associations, according to the British network "BBC", said that 65 people are currently arrested in cases related to the popular movement and individual freedoms. The National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees, an organization concerned with the affairs of activists in the arrested popular movement, stated that "dozens of activists were arrested or interrogated," and most of them were later released.
The Opponent of the Regime
The activist was born in Ait Boudaw, in Tizi Ouzou state, Kabylie, on June 2, 1973, the first child of a housewife and a builder father, and the eldest of nine siblings. He left his hometown for Tizi Ouzou, in 1999 when he took a degree in economics, and later, he joined the Front of Socialist Forces (FFS), a party with a strong presence in the region. He discovered unionism and political activity at the university, and there, he decided to join the Socialist Forces Front, which is obvious for an admirer of the party's founder, Hossein Ait Ahmed.
In one of the opinion articles Tabou published in the French magazine “John Afrique” in January 2009, he said: “I loved and admired his struggle for democracy, pluralism and the defense of human rights, and I can’t be in any other political formation.” The young activist in his twenties quickly made progress, and his strong interventions on the occasion of the Third Party Congress in May 2000 shed light on him greatly, but his stance against the leaders of the party, which was founded in 1963, cost him a lot. Hussein Ait Ahmed, who died in 2015, believed in Karim Tabu as a prominent leader and his successor in the party. He invited him in November 2001 to Switzerland, where he had been living for several years, so that the two men would think about the future of the oldest opposition party in Algeria.
At the age of 75, and contrary to the opinion of the leaders of the Socialist Forces Front, Ait Ahmed, appointed the 33 year-old man, at the time as the party's first secretary, on April 6, 2007. The founder appointed new faces within the party and revived it, in response to those who opposed his rise, considering that his age no longer allowed him to be the leader of the party, and recommended young leaders to be close to the press, which is considered necessary in order to transmit their message to the people. At the head of the first opposition party, Karim Tabou showed himself as a fiery opponent of power during the era of former regime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. But the president was not the only goal, the politician did not hesitate to criticize the army and the generals, and the rest of the parties, including the Rally for Culture and Democracy (RCD) party, which was headed by its founder, Saeed Saadi at the time.
In the Face of the General
In 2008, in a car on the Kabylie road, the politician was shooted, and despite this incident that could have cost him his life, the first secretary of the Front of Socialist Forces refused to enjoy a special guard and insisted not to move from his apartment on the outskirts of Algeria, The capital, according to "John Afrique" magazine. Karim Tabou's conflicts with party officials who had opposed his position in the party from the beginning still exist. Rather, it ended up pushing Karim Tabou to be out of the party, and in November 2011. He was replaced by Ali al-Askari, first secretary, before leaving the party on July 17, 2012.
His departure from the Socialist Forces Front did not mean the end of his political career. On November 1, 2012, a few months after leaving the old party, Karim Tabou founded the Democratic and Social Union (UDS), which had not yet been authorized by the Algerian regime. Tabou left the party with 59 people, and said he withdrew from the Socialist Forces Front because "it is no longer an opposition party."
Tabou was elected as a deputy in parliament during the term of 2012-2017 in the state of Tizi Ouzou, and upon announcing Bouteflika's candidacy for a fourth term, he opposed the idea and said that Algeria was "out of history" and opposed the 2016 constitutional amendment that allows Bouteflika to run. In one of the seminars in the city of Kharata, he attacked the Chief of Staff, saying: "It is impossible for Algeria to be called a regional power with a chief of staff who has neither professional nor political competence.
The country needs a 40-year-old chief of staff who is competent." He added, "We do not need a leader (meaning the leader Salah) who turns an institution (meaning the army) into a political party or a repressive institution, and tries to repress people who want freedom," describing the Algerian army leadership as "neo-colonialism."
Series of Arrests
In 2019, when the "popular movement" was born, he became one of its most prominent faces, and a few months after the first demonstrations, Karim Tabou became the target of the suppressing regime, and he faced charges of "undermining the morale of the army" and "attacking national unity." He was arrested for the first time on September 12, 2019, on charges of violating the morale of the army, and he was released on the 25th of that month, to be arrested again the next day. He was imprisoned between 26 September 2019 and 2 July 2020, and in December 2020 he was sentenced to one year in prison. During his trial on March 4, 2020, he said that he rejects violence and separatist currents, in response to his accusation of separatism.
On March 13, 2020, the Court of First Instance in the capital sentenced him to 6 months in prison on charges of undermining the integrity of the nation, then the Court of Appeal on the 24th of the same month sentenced him to a year in prison. Karim Tabou appears constantly, in front of the cameras, from the courtroom and during arrest, with a big smile on his face, that he is really "fine", thus declaring a psychological warfare in the face of tyranny.
