"A lasting peace in Algeria cannot be built by sacrificing...

"A lasting peace in Algeria cannot be built by sacrificing truth and justice," Amnesty International said in its new report 'Truth and justice obscured by the shadow of impunity'. The human rights organisation called on the Algerian government to investigate urgently the thousands of killings, massacres, "disappearances", abductions, cases of torture, and other grave abuses committed since 1992 by security forces, state-armed militias and armed groups which call themselves "Islamic groups", and ensure that all those responsible are brought to justice. It also called on the government to declare the wholesale amnesties, extended also to perpetrators of serious human rights abuses which constitute violations of international law, to be null and void, and to ensure that members or leaders of armed groups who have surrendered under the Civil Harmony law and who have been responsible for human rights abuses are brought to justice. The Algerian government should also take concrete measures to put an immediate end to arbitrary arrests, secret detentions, torture, "disappearances" and extrajudicial executions, Amnesty said.