Human Rights at Home and Abroad: Past, Present, and Future

military matters in Algiers. 6 This gave Massu the power to set up segregated zones in the city to keep the
Arab population contained in one area. He also was able to place any person deemed dangerous to public
security under arrest. This generally included all of the Arab inhabitants of the city because any one of
them could have been involved with the FLN. Massu also had the authority to search and remove people
from their homes any time day or night. 7 Almost immediately after taking command a policy of random
arrest and hostile interrogation of prisoners was initiated. Torture was used as a means to discover both
the membership of the FLN and to discover the locations of bombs and bomb makers who were scattered
throughout the city. 8 This was the rationale behind the use of torture by the military. The French military
used the ―ticking bomb‖ scenario to validate the use of forceful interrogation. 9
The Battle of Algiers marked the most intense period of French military action during the
Algerian War of Independence. During this ten month period the French military involve itself in more
torture and sent more Algerians to internment camps than during any other time in the war. The military
used their power in a manner that violated the fundamental human rights of the Algerian population.
Tens of thousands of suspected rebels were arrested and tortured while thousands more were sent to
camps to await the same fate. Of the many thousands of people randomly taken from their homes few
were actually connected with the FLN. 10 By some accounts made by military officers only three or five
out of every hundred prisoners were sympathizers of the FLN and out of that number even less were
responsible for making or setting the bombs the French military claimed to be looking for. 11 While the
military was searching for this small portion of the population thousands of innocent people were falsely
arrested and needlessly tortured. The exact number of Algerians who were tortured throughout the entire
war is unknown but if a similar rate of torture occurred throughout the rest of the war to the amount that
occurred during the Battle of Algiers the number would easily be in the hundreds of thousands.
6 Patrick Rotman, ―L‘ennemi Intime: États D‘armes.‖ Disc 3. Battle of Algiers, Criterion Collection. DVD.
Directed by Patrick Rotman. 2002.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid.
9 Ibid.
10 Ibid.
11 Ibid.
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