Massinissa Guermah

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Massinissa Guermah (* 1983 in Beni Douala with Tizi Ouzou ; † April 18 or April 20, 2001 ) was an Algerian student who belonged to the Berber minority ( Kabyle ). His violent death in police custody sparked by the Berber population for months of serious unrest, also known as "Black Spring" ( French Le Printemps Noir , Kabyle Tafsut Taberkant ) are referred to.

Guermah was arrested on April 18, 2001 in Beni Douala, a town not far from Tizi Ouzou, and then shot several times in the local gendarmerie . He was then admitted to hospital, where he died two days later on April 20, 2001, the anniversary of one of the crucial events of the Berber Spring . On April 21, officials announced Guermah's death and accused him of being a thief and a member of a youth gang. Over 4,000 people gathered for his funeral, and in the days that followed, serious unrest broke out across Kabylia , which lasted until early July of the same year. According to official information, Guermah was killed in an accident in which a gendarme lost his Kalashnikov , fell to the ground and then several shots were fired from it, which hit Guermah. Amnesty International, however, denies this allegation and claims to have had testimony to prove that Guermah was executed.

More than a year later, on October 29, 2002, the gendarme Merabet Mestari was sentenced by a military tribunal to a two-year prison term for involuntary injury and manslaughter . Both the Bouteflika government's decision not to bring Mestari to a civil court and the verdict itself have been sharply criticized by sections of the Algerian press and the tribal leaders of the Kabyle. In the press the process was described as a "parody of justice" and Guermah's father commented on the verdict with the words: "Now you have killed my son for the second time."

literature

  • James McDougall: Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa . Routledge 2003, ISBN 0-7146-5409-4 , pp. 103-104
  • Bruce Maddy-Weitzman: The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States. Texas University Press 2011, ISBN 978-0-292-72587-4 , pp. 185-187
  • David Robert: Elections without selection (PDF; 61 kB). KAS -AI, August 2002, pp. 70-86

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Bruce Maddy-Weitzman: The Berber Identity Movement and the Challenge to North African States. Texas University Press 2011, ISBN 978-0-292-72587-4 , pp. 185–187 ( excerpt in Google book search)
  2. ^ Maya Shatzmiller: Nationalism and Minority Identities in Islamic Societies . McGill-Queen's Press 2005, ISBN 0-7735-2848-2 , p. 207 ( excerpt in the Google book search)
  3. ↑ Amnesty International: Asylum Report - Unrest in Kabylia 2001 ( Memento of the original from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . September 22, 2003 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.amnesty.de
  4. ↑ John Douglas Ruedy: Modern Algeria: The Origins and Development of a Nation . Indiana University Press, ISBN 0-253-21782-2 , p. 279 ( excerpt from Google book search)
  5. ↑ Silencing The Protestors (PDF; 230 kB). The Wire (Amnesty International) Volume 31 - Issue 5 July 2001
  6. ↑ James McDougall: Nation, Society and Culture in North Africa . Routledge 2003, ISBN 0-7146-5409-4 , pp. 103-104 ( excerpt in the Google book search)
  7. ↑ Gendarme sentenced over Berber death . BBC News World Edition, November 6, 2002
personal data
SURNAME Guermah, Massinissa
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Algerian student leader
DATE OF BIRTH 1983
PLACE OF BIRTH Beni Douala at Tizi Ouzou
DATE OF DEATH April 20, 2001