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Published on: 6/21/2003
Last Visited: 6/21/2003
ALI YAHIA ABDENNOUR
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Ali Yahia Abdennour is generally considered the founding father of human rights in Algeria.His denunciation of the regime's cancelling of elections the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) was poised to win in December 1991 and of security force excesses in the crackdown on Islamic fundamentalists brought him into the public eye in the 90s.His commitment to justice stretches further back, however.
Born on January 18, 1921, in Upper Kabylia, he attended school in the regional Berber capital of Tizi-Ouzou and the Arabic-speaking region of Medea.
When the Allies landed in North Africa in 1943 he was called up and saw action across Europe.On returning to Algeria, he became active in the main nationalist movement of the time, the PPA-MTLD, founded by the messianic Messali Hadj.In 1948, a party purge over the Berber question forced Ali to quit and turn to trade unionism.A committed nationalist aloof from party feuding, he co-founded the General Union of Algerian Workers (UGTA) in 1956.
He was arrested by the French colonial authorities at the start of the Battle of Algiers in January 1957.On his release three years later, he fled to Tunisia, where the provisional government (GPRA) was based, and took charge of the UGTA secretariat.He become general secretary after Independence, relinquishing office at the UGTA congress in 1963.
He sat on the Constituent Assembly in September 1962 and was elected the following year to the National Assembly.
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Ali Yahia Abdennour became Minister of Public Works, then of Agriculture.
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