Algeria: Draft Penal Code Reinstates Death Penalty for Arsonists

Algeria is preparing to reopen a file that has been closed for over thirty years. On Monday, September 21, 2026, Minister of Justice Lotfi Boudjemaâ presented a draft revision of the penal code to the legal affairs committee of the National People's Assembly, establishing the death penalty for perpetrators of arson and child kidnapping, according to Radio France Internationale.

The minister justified the urgency of the text by citing directives from the highest level of state: he referred to "strict instructions from the President of the Republic," Abdelmadjid Tebboune, to quickly prepare a new bill on the death penalty. The draft targets not only the direct perpetrators but also the instigators, financiers, and organizers, and provides for harsher sentences when the kidnapping of a minor is accompanied by torture or sexual assault.

A De Facto Moratorium Since 1993

Algeria has not carried out any executions since 1993, a de facto moratorium that has never been written into law: courts continue to hand down death sentences, particularly in terrorism cases, without them being carried out. Amnesty International recorded at least 273 people on death row in Algeria at the end of 2025.

The trigger for the bill is the series of deadly forest fires in August 2026, which officially claimed the lives of twelve people. The country had already experienced a heavy precedent: in 2023, more than fifty people were sentenced to death for the murder of a man wrongly accused of starting deadly fires — a case that illustrates the risk of judicial error in a climate of collective emotion.

Human Rights Organizations on the Front Line

Amnesty International is calling on the Algerian authorities to immediately abandon any plans to extend the death penalty and to turn the de facto moratorium into an official one, as a first step toward abolition. The International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) and a coalition of associations, including the one for the preservation of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, signed an op-ed demanding the maintenance of the moratorium and respect for Algiers' international commitments. For these organizations, the death penalty has never deterred arsonists from acting.

The debate extends beyond Algerian borders: several countries on the continent have renounced the death penalty in recent years, and a return to executions in Algeria would mark a break in this trend. The text must still be examined by MPs before any vote.