Amazigh Kabyle activist and academic Mira Moknache remains in detention even after an Algerian appeals court cleared 23 other defendants in a case targeting alleged links to the Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylie, according to Kabyle.com.
The report says the criminal appeal court in Algiers issued its decisions on May 3, 2026, in a file built around accusations including harming national territorial integrity and belonging to a terrorist organization. Those charges have been used against people accused of links to the MAK, which Algerian authorities classify as a terrorist organization.
Kabyle.com reported that 23 activists were acquitted, while nine others received sentences treated as already served after periods of pre-trial detention. Moknache, however, was not released, leaving supporters and rights observers asking whether she faces a separate procedure, additional charges, or a political decision to keep a high-profile Kabyle and Hirak figure in custody.
The case is significant because it points to the fragmented way Algeria handles security and political files involving Kabyle activism. Even when courts find insufficient evidence against groups of defendants, some prominent figures can remain trapped in overlapping proceedings. For Amazigh rights advocates, the continued detention of Moknache is part of a wider pattern in which anti-terrorism provisions are used to narrow political expression, especially when it touches Kabyle self-determination, Hirak activism, or Amazigh identity politics.
No independent official explanation for Moknache’s continued detention has been made public in the sources reviewed for this draft. The story should therefore be handled carefully: the confirmed news is not a final legal outcome, but the contradiction reported by Kabyle.com between mass acquittals and the continued imprisonment of one of the file’s most visible defendants.