Hamza Atbi - Algeria
Algerian political activist Kamal Eddine Fakhar, 53, died Tuesday at Franz Fanon hospital in Balida after his health deteriorated in Ghardaia prison after he had been on hunger strike for nearly two months.
Lawyer Saleh Debouz said a pottery case worsened after he decided to fight the empty gut battle to protest his being held in temporary custody in Ghardaia prison.
He explained that before his death, he was rushed to Blida Hospital, in a state of fainting, after suffering and neglect in the prison hospital.
Not the first
The death of pottery inside the prison was not an exceptional case in Algeria; it was preceded by the same journalist Mohammed Tamalt, who went on a hunger strike to denounce his writings.
Pottery was one of the prominent leaders in the region of Ghardaia calling for the need for political reform in the country, and practiced the profession of medicine before his dismissal from work because of his positions.
He joined the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights and was a leader of the Socialist Forces Party. He was also arrested and imprisoned several times.
In a telephone conversation with Al Jazeera Net, Deboz confirmed that the pottery was arrested on March 31 last, by order of the prosecution, because of a dialogue condemning the policy of double standards followed by the local authorities, especially judicial.
He added that after depositing the temporary pottery, he entered a hunger strike and put him in a very narrow cell in Ghardaia prison, with the unionist Haj Ibrahim Awaf.
Due to his deteriorating health, he was taken to the prison clinic where he stayed for ten days before his condition worsened further, forcing the prison staff to transfer him to the hospital.
While he was lying in the custody room of Ghardaia Hospital, his lawyer filed for his release, but he refused. Deborah also revealed that pottery had lost part of his memory.
Who bears responsibility
The jurist was responsible for the death of a public prosecutor at the Ghardaia district council, who ordered his arrest, and "set himself a personal opponent of pottery and all activists."
In the same context, lawyer Abdul Ghani Badi said in his speech to the island Net that full responsibility borne by the Department of Justice, which is excessive in the filing procedures, and did not even release him despite the deterioration of his health because of the strike.
He went on to say that responsibility is a political responsibility for a political file, and that the current regime has harmed Algeria by leaving the pottery to die without moving a finger.
The death of pottery left a wave of responses in the political arena, and many political parties, especially the opposition, condemned the incident as "crime."
RCD condemned this crime and blamed the authorities for the death of pottery, calling on the Algerians to maintain mobilization for the departure of the political regime and all its symbols.
For its part, the Permanent Secretariat of the Political Bureau of the Labor Party issued a statement expressing outrage and panic, saying that "the death of this activist in custody is incomprehensible and unacceptable."
In a statement, the Socialist Forces Party called for "justice and truth and sheds light on the circumstances of this death" because the death came after several weeks of arbitrary detention under unfair and inhuman conditions.