Algeria has been a case study in how not to deal with Islamist activism. Its experience dwarfs that of its neighbours in both scale of violence - over 100,000 deaths since 1991 - and number of Islamic organisations disputing the religious, political and military fields. But there is now an opportunity to turn this tragic page, says a report from the International Crisis Group. "Seizing it requires a skilful blend of political, security, legal and diplomatic measures to eliminate remaining armed groups. But Algeria's political class also must recast debate around a new agenda of practical reform. Europe needs to help more, and the U.S. to be more sophisticated in its handling of an over-played al-Qaeda factor."

Following the discovery of another mass grave last Thursday, Amnesty International has called upon the Algerian authorities to fully investigate the site and to treat previously unearthed graves similarly. According to Algerian security sources, the grave contains more than a dozen bodies of victims of killings committed by an armed group during the mid-1990s. In recent months, Amnesty International has repeatedly expressed concern about the failure of the Algerian authorities to investigate mass grave sites in line with international standards, raising fears that evidence of grave human rights abuses has been lost.

The Algerian government has jailed several journalists critical of its president and slapped a "temporary freeze" on the Arabic satellite channel al-Jazeera. It is the most severe attack on the freedom of the press since President M. Abdelaziz Bouteflika came to power in April 1999. The North African country has one of the freest print medias in the Arab world.

Reporters sans frontières (RSF) has strongly condemned the Algerian authorities' decision to "temporarily freeze" the Arabic satellite channel al-Jazeera's activities in Algeria and called for an immediate lifting of the ban. "This unfair decision amounts to nothing more than censorship," said RSF. "This is the first time for more than ten years that a foreign television channel in Algeria has been banned from covering news in this way."

Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika vowed Monday to free women from the yoke of the repressive Islamic "family code" that considers them perpetually dependent on men. Bouteflika, taking the oath of office for his second and final term after winning re-election in a landslide on April 8, said he rejected that women "should be subjected to a status that assails their rights and condemns them to a condition inferior to men".

The plight of what could be more than a million people uprooted by violence in Algeria's conflict between the government and groups of armed Islamist extremists is largely ignored by the international community, according to a new report published by the Norwegian Refugee Council's Global IDP Project. “Our analysis suggests that the scope of the displacement crisis in Algeria is much more significant than previously thought,” said Raymond Johansen, the organisation's Secretary General.

Algeria's commission on "disappearances" needs greater investigative powers and a broader mandate if it is to be credible and effective, Human Rights Watch says in a new report. The 32-page report, "Truth and Justice on Hold: The New State Commission on 'Disappearances,'" examines the "disappearances" commission announced in September by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. After years of stonewalling on the issue, the Algerian government established the commission to clarify the fate of the more than 7,000 persons who "disappeared"-mostly at the hands of security forces-during the civil conflict of the 1990s.

The Algerian government has set up a commission to revise the north African country's family code to improve women's rights, an official said on Monday. Under the current code, based mainly on Islam's strict Sharia law and adopted in 1984, women must submit to male protection throughout their lives.

Farid Alilat, managing editor of the daily "Liberté", was arrested on October 7 at his newspaper's offices and brought before an Algiers court, where he was questioned for five hours about a column entitled "La fessée" ("The Spanking").The column, published on 21 August, was written by Hakim Laâlam of the daily "Le Soir d'Algérie", which was suspended at the time for having failed to pay its debts to the state printers. "Liberté" published the column as a gesture of solidarity.

In late April 2001, lethal provocations by elements of Algeria’s National Gendarmerie triggered protracted and deadly rioting in Kabylia. That the unrest from Kabylia’s Black Spring continues to this day reflects the political system’s nation-wide failure to adopt reforms that address its deficit of democratic representation, says the International Crisis Group. Neither the regime, nor the Kabyle political parties nor the so-called “Coordinations” that lead the protest movement in the region has to date proposed a serious formula for ending the impasse.

"Despite Algeria's troubled political situation, it is potentially a big connectivity market. Recently it has begun to open itself up to competition and although progress is slow, significant steps forward have been made."

Reporters Without Borders says it is shocked at the murder on 26 July of Algerian TV presenter Mourad Belkacem and called on the authorities to investigate at once the circumstances and motives for the killing.

The single most notable message from the recent elections in Algeria was the high rate of voter disinterest, according to a new International Crisis Group (ICG) report. In the capital, Algiers, 70 per cent of voters stayed away. In the Kabylia region, where there have been massive anti-government protests, alarming levels of violence and a powerful movement to boycott the elections, turnout was as low as 2 per cent. ICG Middle East Program Director Robert Malley said: "Since they won their independence, the Algerian people have gone from the enthusiasm of the post-colonial days, to authoritarian single-party rule, chaotic pluralism, and then a grisly war that has been civil in name only. Today, Algeria's political class - in power and in opposition alike -- faces a straightforward task: to prove that it can be useful and that politics can work".

Amnesty International calls for the release of human rights defender Abderrahmane Khelil and his friend Sid Ahmed Mourad. AI also wants an end to the intimidation of human rights activists in the country. The clampdown comes as human rights activists in Algeria investigate the circumstances surrounding the arrest, detention and trials of dozens of people in the context of ongoing anti- government demonstrations in the lead-up to legislative elections on 30 May 2002.

The Council of Government observed with regret that the said report and the ferocious campaign that accompanied it contradicted the efforts deployed by both Algeria and Morocco for strengthening trust and mutual trust for the benefit of good neighbourliness and cooperation between the two Algerian and Moroccan brotherly peoples, and the process of building the Arab Maghreb Union.

Algeria is reportedly co-operating with the US in the international alliance against terrorism. State media reports that it has handed over to Washington a list of 350 Islamist militants known to be abroad and whom Algerian intelligence believes are likely to have links to Osama Bin Laden.

Over the last two years, North Africa, and to some extent the whole southern coast of the Mediterranean, has become a 'dead end zone' for Black African migrants. "Passing through North Africa, migrants are treated like slaves" for having committed the only 'sin' of deserting the misery, persecutions and conflicts of their countries in search of a better life, a disturbing development of European Union Migration policy.

Algeria is racked by violence and scarred by poverty. But some believe its long nightmare could soon end.

The Algerian authorities have prevented thousands of Berber-speaking protesters from holding a planned protest march through the capital Algiers. Soldiers wielding machine guns and aided by police dogs set up road-blocks around the capital Algiers and turned back buses coming from the mainly-Berber eastern region of Kabylia to prevent a planned march by on Thursday.