It was a few years after France recognized the responsibility of the Vichy government in the Holocaust, who collaborated with Germany under the Nazi invasion. Just as today, what leaked from the state memory regarding the issues of Algeria and torture were brought to the agenda. Today, there are still surviving witnesses of the sins of the Vichy government as well as the Algerian War.

Having apologized for the collaborating government while under invasion, France did not accept its atrocities in Algeria, which had been a French colony for 130 years, let alone apologizing for that, despite all the books unabashedly penned by the perpetrators. One of them was Paul Aussaresses, a French Army general.

Aussaresses wrote a book describing the tortures practiced during the Algerian War, presenting the details of torture methods and advocating these methods as if sharing a recipe. Published in May, 2000, the book was found abominable by everyone in France, including then President Jacques Chirac. So, he was stripped of his rank and his Légion d’Honneur following the controversies the book caused.

Undoubtedly, an apology of a crime is also a crime. In this case, however, the general was granted a legion of honor decoration while the state was informed about this very crime, but he was stripped of it when the crime became public.

So, the state attempted to vindicate itself by discrediting the general. Gen. Aussaresses’ book followed the statements of Gen. Jacques Massu, who said: “War does not legitimize torture. Torture was not only generalized but institutionalized in Algeria. I feel devastated as I think of it.” But Massu was not disgraced as Aussaresses. After all, what was accepted as a crime in this context was not the systematic state torture itself, but the blatant acclamation of torture.

As soon as the 83-year-old Aussaresses’ book was published, the Human Rights League filed a complaint against him for apology of war crimes although no war crime was manifested. The official state discourse did not even officially recognize until recently that there was a war in Algeria. According to the French state, there were only incidents necessary to establish order in the country, which was colonized for 130 years.

Following the Human Rights League, the International Federation for Human Rights filed a complaint against Aussaresses for committing a crime against humanity, and another anti-racist organization followed this. Of course, no results were obtained from the complaints, but Aussaresses was still brought to trial.

During the three-day hearing in which he was tried with the demand of a 5-year prison sentence and a fine of 300.000 francs, Aussaresses said that he did not regret executing systematic torture but he regretted not doing it the way he wanted one time, adding that he felt remorse for killing someone before he spoke more although he could have pushed him to speak further.

In his defense, Aussaresses also made an analogy with the agenda of the day and said that he did to Larbi M’Hidi exactly what they would do were they to catch Osama Bin Laden.

As can be remembered, he hung Larbi Ben M’Hidi, an important member of the FLN, with Gen. Massu and made it look like suicide. In another incident, he ordered an officer to throw FLN member Ali Boumendjel from the sixth floor of the building he was held prisoner in, claiming that Boumendjel had committed suicide.

Both before and during the trial, he asked: “Am I a criminal, a murderer?” Of course not! The laws do not categorize Aussaresses as a murderer. And he was not tried for torture, either. As Massu and Aussaresses clearly expressed, France accepted with a parliamentary vote a mission named Special Forces, which operated between 1955 and 1957.

Called “death squad” by their interlocutors, the Special Forces were authorized to use every means to reach their goals. During the trial, Aussaresses also hinted that the then Interior Minister François Mitterrand (Socialist French President between 1981 and 1995) wanted rendered all FLN militants involved in terrorism ineffective.

Besides, a law enacted in 1968 amnestied all the offenses of the French between 1954 and 1962. In his second published book, Aussaresses drew parallels between 9/11 and the Algerian War, and described himself as “a soldier who worked for France and did his job as France wants.”

On the last day of the trial, he said: “Sometimes it takes honor to digest dishonor.” So, Gen. Aussaresses was tried not for his actions, but for praising his own actions and opposing a law enacted in 1881. The publishing house which released his books was also charged with the same offense.

When Aussaresses died in 2014 at the age of 95, journalist Jean Charles Deniau, who wrote a book on mathematician Maurice Audin, said that the general did not confess everything. According to Deniau, Aussaresses knew much more than he confessed regarding Audin and thousands of others who were killed as a deterrent to others after being tortured.

While it has not yet accepted that the state directly engaged in systematic torture, France has finally recognized that the French state instigated a system that led to torture during the Algerian war. The statement issued by the Elysée expressed that the French military was vested with a special authority to provide order in Algeria during the war between 1954 and 1962, which laid the groundwork of a number of atrocities, including torture.

Until 1999, Algeria’s independence war was called “Algeria incidents” in France. The Algerian war was ignored by the official state discourse. In efforts to ignore the war fought by Algeria against French colonization, the French state preferred to recognize the war as an intervention of the French forces to establish order. For years, the 130 years of French colonial presence in Algeria and the Algerian Independence War have been brought to the agenda with their various aspects. And this time, the issue of torture has been highlighted in the context of the conflict as it was 20 years ago. The subject was first opened to debate when French President Emmanuel Macron, the first French President born after the Algerian war, received a letter that was formerly sent to his predecessors but was never answered. The letter was penned by Josette Audin, the widow of Maurice Audin who sided with the independence fight of the Algerians and went missing in detainment during the war.

Audin was only 25 when he was detained in 1957. Married with three children, he was an instructor at the University of Algiers Mathematics Department. Audin was among the small number of French citizens in the country giving support to Algeria’s independence during the seven years of war although his father was assigned in the gendarmerie forces of the colonialist state. He died under torture on June 21, 1957.

Following Macron’s visit to Josette Audin, France officially recognized that Audin, a member of the Algerian Communist Party who fought for the independence of Algeria, was killed under torture by the French military officials who detained him in June, 1957. It was stated that according to President Macron, it is time for the French nation to accept the truth. It was also added that the state archives will be opened and all available information on thousands of French and Algerian civilians and military officers who went missing during the war will be revealed.

In fact, it is already known that France exercised systematic torture in Algeria, victimizing thousands of people like Audin. Sometimes, the past of a state cannot simply be ignored as past experiences leave their mark in collective memory. In the early 2000s, a former National Liberation Front (FLN) militant Louisette Ighilahriz gave an interview to Le Monde. Codenamed Lila, the militant was 20 years old when she was apprehended by the French military. In the interview, Lila said that she was not speaking to describe how she was subjected to torture for months or how her youngest brother was killed before the eyes of her mother. Her aim was to find a French military doctor named Richaud who saved her from torture. A day after her interview was published, 94-year-old Gen. Jacques Massu regretfully and abashedly made a confession. He confessed that then Defense Minister Maurice Bourgès Maunoury granted him authority to use all means to quell the terrorist activities of FLN militants and establish order in Algeria. He said: “War does not legitimize torture. Torture was not only generalized but institutionalized in Algeria. I feel devastated as I think of it.” Gen. Massu also knew the doctor Lila was searching for. He said: “Dr. Richaud was a great humanist; he unfortunately passed away a few years ago.”

According to historians and newspaper archives, torture was not started by the French military during the war in Algeria. Long before the outbreak of the independence fight, torture was already a method exercised by the French police.

The collective memory of France was stimulated with Lila’s testimonial and Massu’s confessions during the early 2000s, upon which the issues of Algeria and torture were discussed for days. It is not possible to not talk about these issues considering the 130 years of colonialist practices, inhumane treatments and the war that claimed the lives of 1.5 million Algerians. Algeria has regarded Macron’s recent step as a beginning and demanded further steps. Ighilahriz, who was tortured and raped between October 1 and December 16 in 1957 by command of Gen. Massu, is 82 today. Speaking about the latest developments, she said to French Radio RFI: “I was deeply moved. I was expecting to hear this for a long time. It was such a big trauma, but I can mourn from now on.”

Reports emerged on Friday, 12 January, which confirmed that two citizens of Syria’s northern Manbij city were tortured and killed by the PKK/PYD terrorist organization.

Hannan Al-Jarivah, 25, and Abbud Al-Minkhan, 23, were tortured to death by PKK/PYD terrorists.

The bodies of the two young men, with one’s head cut off, were found in a village 20 kilometers west of Manbij.

Tensions escalated between civilians in Manbij and the PKK/PYD terrorist organization after families of the two victims recognized the bodies of their children, whose photos were shared on social media.

Footage that was shared on social media shows hundreds of people who took to the streets of the city as a response to the killings, following the weekly Friday prayer.

Located on the west bank of the Euphrates River, an Arab-populated city, Manbij remains under the control of the Syrian offshoot of the PKK, the PYD.