At the beginning of June, Algerian police arrested a group of four people alleged to be involved in clandestine abortions in the province of Saida, in the west of Algeria, according to the Arabic-language newspaper El Khabar.
It began when the security services received a complaint about three women, including a receptionist in the emergency department of the local hospital, suspected of providing abortions in an apartment in the city. After a search of the premises, the security services, in coordination with the judicial authorities, detained four women, including one who was pregnant and who was said to be in the apartment for the purpose of having an abortion. One of the women was charged with the illegal exercise of her profession and the offence of abortion of a pregnant woman with medication. The other two were charged with complicity in the provision of an abortion. Anarrest warrant was issued against the pregnant suspect for attempting to have an abortion. It is not clear whether she succeeded or not. All four were placed in pre-trial detention to await a hearing.
Article 304 of the AlgerianPenal Code stipulates that “Whoever, by food, beverages, drugs, maneuvers, violence or by any other means, procures or attempts to procure the abortion of a pregnant or supposedly pregnant woman, whether she has consented to it or not, is punished by imprisonment from one to five years and a fine of five hundred to ten thousand DA”.
SOURCE: ObservAlgerie, Un réseau spécialisé dans les avortements clandestins démantelé,
by Hakim M, 10 June 2020 + PHOTO