Mohamed Benhlima exposed alleged corruption in the Algerian military on his YouTube channel and Facebook page between 2019 and 2022. He also participated in the Algerian Hirak protest movement that erupted in February 2019, and fled to Spain, fearing prosecution, in September 2019. Since his forced return from Spain, Algerian authorities have initiated dozens of prosecutions against him in civilian and military courts.
On 24 March 2022, the Spanish authorities issued refused his asylum and forcibly returned him to Algeria in blatant violation of their obligations on non-refoulement within hours, without notifying his lawyers of the order of expulsion. The decisions were made despite concerns over risks of arbitrary detention and torture or other ill-treatment in Algeria, raised by his lawyers and several human rights organizations including Amnesty International, which also called on the authorities not to deport him. The Spanish authorities also ignored an assessment provided by the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on 21 March 2022 which found him eligible for international protection and found grounds to believe that the risk of torture was "foreseeable, personal, present and real".
Mohamed Benhlima was informed on 8 May 2022 that the Blida Military Court had sentenced him to death in absentia in 2021 for an overly broad charge of disclosing confidential information relating to national defence to a foreign entity under Article 63 para 2 of the Penal Code. Upon his forced...
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