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Algeria ‘Bouazizi’: Another nail in coffin of corruption state

El Khabar reports young man died after setting himself on fire following spat with municipal security officers.

Middle East Online

State of marginalisation and corruption

ALGIERS – A 27-year old Algerian man died at the city of Batna University hospital after spending more than a week there suffering from burns in several parts of his body, according to medical sources.

The newspaper El Khabar merely mentioned the first two letters of the name of the young victim (F. K) and reported that he died after setting himself on fire following a spat with municipal security officers.

Algeria witnessed four reported cases of self-immolation in 2011. All of them came to protest against unemployment and the lack of housing.

In 2011, as the widely reported protests sparked off by Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation in Tunisia began to have a clear impact on the Tunisian government, a wave of self-immolations swept Algeria.

These individual acts to protest against unemployment and the lack of housing mostly took place in front of a government building. Four self-immolators have died of their burns so far.

The wave of self-immolations began on 12 January, when 26 year-old Mohamed Aouichia set himself on fire in Bordj Menaiel in the compound of the daira building.

He had been sharing a room of 30 square metres with seven other people, including his sister, since 2003; he had repeatedly approached local authorities to get on the social housing list and been rebuffed. He has so far survived.

On 13 January, Mohsen Bouterfif, a 37-year-old father of two, set himself on fire. He had gone with about twenty other youths to protest in front of the town hall of Boukhadra in Tebessa demanding jobs and houses, after the mayor refused to receive them. His death was reported on 16 January, and about 100 youths protested his death causing the provincial governor to sack the mayor.

However, hospital staff the following day claimed he was still alive, though in critical condition. Al Jazeera described the suicide as „echoing the self-immolation that triggered the protests that toppled the leader of neighbouring Tunisia.“

He finally died on 24 January at a hospital in Annaba. These suicides were followed by dozens more attempted or successful self-immolations across the country, so far without triggering nation-wide demonstrations.