Rights campaigners urge Algeria to abandon expanded death penalty for wildfire arson

Pressure over a proposed penal-code expansion

Human-rights campaigners have urged Algeria to abandon plans to expand capital punishment to deliberate forest fires and other offences, Al Jazeera reported on September 15. The intervention follows President Abdelmadjid Tebboune's order for the justice minister to prepare penal-code amendments after destructive August wildfires killed at least 12 people and injured 54 in the country's northeast. Algeria retains the death penalty in law but has not carried out an execution since 1993.

The proposed changes would make intentional wildfire arson a capital offence and could also extend the penalty to specified crimes against children. Tebboune had set a September 15 deadline for a proposal. Current law already allows long prison terms, including life imprisonment in some circumstances, for deliberately starting forest fires. The new initiative would therefore change the maximum sanction rather than create the underlying arson offence.

Amnesty International warned that the expansion could be used against political opponents, particularly in the Kabylie region. According to Al Jazeera's account of the organisation's statement, authorities detained 20 people between July 26 and September 10 in investigations involving arson and subversion allegations. The report links those concerns to prosecutions after the deadly 2021 wildfire season, when the government blamed a Kabylie autonomy movement it classifies as terrorist.

A clash with Algeria's moratorium record

Algeria's long suspension of executions is central to the dispute. United Nations records show that the country voted in favour of the General Assembly's December 2024 resolution calling for a moratorium on use of the death penalty. Algeria has also repeatedly presented its non-execution policy in UN human-rights reviews. Adding new capital offences would not automatically end that practical moratorium, but it would move criminal law away from progressive restriction and create new exposure to death sentences.

The government's case rests on deterrence and public anger following a disaster that destroyed homes, livelihoods and villages. Officials raised suspicions of deliberate ignition because numerous fires reportedly began at similar times. Those suspicions do not establish responsibility for individual fires, however, and campaigners argue that severe punishment should not replace evidence-based investigations, investment in firefighting capacity or measures addressing extreme heat, drought and land management.

What happens next depends on the text submitted by the justice ministry and whether the government sends it to parliament. Lawmakers will need to define the required intent, evidentiary threshold, appeal rights and relationship to terrorism or state-security offences. The central test is whether Algeria preserves its three-decade non-execution practice and international moratorium position or begins constructing a legal route toward resumed executions under the pressure of a national disaster.