Algeria visit worry for Zaoui fans

By CATHERINE MASTERS

The Government has taken the first step in resuming a political and economic relationship with Algeria, the country jailed politician Ahmed Zaoui fled from in fear of his life.

Diplomats from the New Zealand embassy in Paris spent five days in the oil-rich military-led North African country in June, the first visit in more than 11 years.

Now supporters of Mr Zaoui are worried the visit is paving the way to have him returned to Algeria where he faces a death sentence imposed by the military regime.

The Minister of Foreign Affairs, Phil Goff, told the Weekend Herald yesterday that the visit was about trade and to establish a dialogue on international political issues.

He said the report back was that the situation in Algeria had greatly improved and conceded it may now be possible for the Government to consider the option of sending Mr Zaoui back there.

Others though, such as Amnesty International, say there are still serious human rights abuses in Algeria.

Mr Zaoui was an elected member of Parliament in Algeria but his party, the Islamic Front for Salvation [FIS], was overthrown in the early 1990s in a bloody military coup.

Mr Zaoui fled after the coup and has been either kicked out or has left European countries before landing in New Zealand seeking asylum in December 2002.

He has been in jail ever since, despite gaining refugee status, because the SIS says he is a threat to our national security and issued him with a security risk certificate. Progressive MP Matt Robson said the Government had either done a deal with Algeria or was seeking a deal to have Mr Zaoui sent back and accused his Labour colleagues of forgetting party principles of standing up for victims of oppression.

"Ahmed Zaoui is one of those people," Mr Robson said.

Mr Goff said no decision on Mr Zaoui's future had been made. "The question is, is Algeria at all an option and the fact-finding mission to Algeria suggests it's certainly more of an option than it might have been in the past."


Herald Feature: Ahmed Zaoui, parliamentarian in prison

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