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Karim Tabbou (Algerian opposition leader; prominent Hirak figure, repeatedly jailed) — from a Facebook video (~Apr 2019, per HRW): his Hirak challenge to army chief Gaid Salah — by "what right have you to close the roads… shut down the internet… close public transportation of Algerians … impose your will on Algerians?"

English DZ flag Algeria Tier 2 — primary or translation 30 words

Politician: Karim Tabbou

Original source: https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/05/algeria-protest-leaders-sentence-doubled-eve-his-release

Content

verbatim · English
what right have you to close the roads in the face of Algerians, shut down the internet of Algerians, close public transportation of Algerians … impose your will on Algerians?

English translation

translation
[Source is English (Human Rights Watch, reproducing his statement from a Facebook video, in its report on his prosecution; HRW's English rendering of his Arabic/French); tier-2, confirmed verbatim against the fetched page. The "…" inside the quote is HRW's ellipsis (an elision in their rendering); the quote is his rhetorical challenge addressed to army chief of staff Ahmed Gaid Salah, and HRW renders it mid-sentence (hence the lowercase opening). published_date left NULL: the video dates to ~April 2019 (after President Bouteflika's resignation) but the exact date is not separately confirmed here — not fabricated.] Declared position of Karim Tabbou — a prominent Algerian opposition figure (founder of the Democratic and Social Union / UDS) and one of the most visible civilian leaders of the HIRAK, the mass peaceful protest movement that erupted in February 2019, forced President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to abandon a fifth term and resign, then demanded the dismantling of the entire military-dominated "système" ("le pouvoir"). Challenging army chief of staff Ahmed Gaid Salah — the de facto strongman after Bouteflika — Tabbou demanded to know by what right the army closes roads, shuts down the internet and public transport, and "impose[s] your will on Algerians." He called for CIVILIAN, democratic rule and (in the same prosecution) for young officers to free the military institution from the corrupt "gang" within it. For this he was repeatedly jailed (on charges of "undermining army morale" and harming "national territorial integrity"). This is the ALGERIAN HIRAK / PEACEFUL PRO-DEMOCRACY / CIVILIAN-STATE-vs-MILITARY-REGIME pole — popular, non-violent demands to end military rule and build a genuine democracy — a distinct cell absent elsewhere in the dataset, and the counter-pole to the Algerian military establishment (Bouteflika, Tebboune, the army leadership). [Axes: democracy (peaceful pro-democracy movement; civilian rule; against the military "système"), civil-liberties (free expression; right to protest; against repression such as internet/road shutdowns), regime-stance (the Hirak vs the army-dominated state; demilitarization of politics), national-sovereignty (the people's will vs the generals').]

How to cite this document

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In-text (Tabbou, n.d.)
APA 7
Tabbou, K.. (n.d.). Karim Tabbou (Algerian opposition leader; prominent Hirak figure, repeatedly jailed) — from a Facebook video (~Apr 2019, per HRW): his Hirak challenge to army chief Gaid Salah — by "what right have you to close the roads… shut down the internet… close public transportation of Algerians … impose your will on Algerians?". hrw.org. Retrieved July 28, 2026, from https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/05/algeria-protest-leaders-sentence-doubled-eve-his-release
Chicago (author-date)
Tabbou, Karim. n.d.. "Karim Tabbou (Algerian opposition leader; prominent Hirak figure, repeatedly jailed) — from a Facebook video (~Apr 2019, per HRW): his Hirak challenge to army chief Gaid Salah — by "what right have you to close the roads… shut down the internet… close public transportation of Algerians … impose your will on Algerians?"." hrw.org. Accessed July 28, 2026. https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/05/algeria-protest-leaders-sentence-doubled-eve-his-release.
BibTeX
@misc{doc-document-efad7f32-7435-4ccc-84f7-917c5e18855a,
  author       = {Tabbou, Karim},
  title        = {Karim Tabbou (Algerian opposition leader; prominent Hirak figure, repeatedly jailed) — from a Facebook video (~Apr 2019, per HRW): his Hirak challenge to army chief Gaid Salah — by "what right have you to close the roads… shut down the internet… close public transportation of Algerians … impose your will on Algerians?"},
  year         = {n.d.},
  howpublished = {Online; hosted at hrw.org},
  url          = {https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/04/05/algeria-protest-leaders-sentence-doubled-eve-his-release},
  urldate      = {2026-07-28},
  note         = {Retrieved via Tayyar at https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/efad7f32-7435-4ccc-84f7-917c5e18855a},
}

Retrieved via Tayyar: https://tarekgara.com/tayyar/documents/efad7f32-7435-4ccc-84f7-917c5e18855a on July 28, 2026. Tayyar is a research host for primary sources, not the author of this document.