Algeria on Monday released a leader of a banned Islamic party. Ali Belhadj, former deputy leader of the Islamic Salvation Front, had been barred from political or charitable activity and from making public statements when he was released in 2003 after serving a 12-year term for threatening national security. He was arrested again after he praised the Iraqi insurgency last July on the Arab television network Al-Jazeera and condoned the kidnapping in Iraq of two Algerian diplomats, who were later killed. The Salvation Front rose to power in Algeria's first multiparty national elections in December 1991, prompting the army to cancel the second round voting. Beheadings and massacres by Islamic extremists followed, and tens of thousands of civilians were killed. Government security forces were accused of playing at least a passive role in some of the bloodshed, which largely ended with a cease-fire in 1997.
As part of national reconciliation efforts approved in a referendum last year, jails around the country started releasing prisoners this weekend. The plan foresees pardons for people convicted of crimes that did not involve massacres, rape or explosions in public places. Critics say the plan seeks to whitewash years of agony and that releasing extremists and allowing them home from exile could plant the seeds for future violence.