As part of Algeria's effort to encourage citizens to participate in the 10 May legislative election, the human rights commission suggested that people be forced to vote. Farouk Ksentini, chairman of the National Consultative Committee for the Protection and Promotion of Human Rights (CNCPPDH), on 7 April proposed that there should be a punishment for those who fail to vote.

This is a letter Human Rights Watch sent to all 15 members of the UN Security Council on human rights monitoring in Western Sahara and in camps in Tindouf, Algeria.

An al-Qaeda splinter group has said it carried out a suicide attack on a paramilitary police base in southern Algeria which left 24 people wounded. 'We inform you that we are behind the explosion that occurred this morning at Tamanrasset,' the group told the AFP news agency on Saturday. The statement, sent just hours after the attack, was signed by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MOJWA).

A court in Algeria has sentenced a fugitve leader of al-Qaeda's north African wing and three of his followers to death for attacks against the military. The sentence against Mokhtar Belmokhtar and the three others was handed down in absentia on Sunday night after a day-long trial in Algiers.