An administrative tribunal in Algiers ordered the dissolution of the National Autonomous Union of Education and Training Workers, known by its French acronym CNAPESTE, on 28 July 2026. The union had been legally registered since 2007 and represented teaching staff across the three stages of Algeria’s school system.
According to the union’s legal representatives, the ruling followed a petition filed by the Ministry of Labour and backed by the Ministry of Education. The petition invoked Law 23-02, the trade union law adopted in April 2023.
A law with broad grounds for dissolution
Law 23-02 gives the authorities sweeping powers to suspend or dissolve trade unions on grounds that are broadly and vaguely defined. They include an alleged failure to update or comply with internal bylaws, and the organisation of strikes deemed “illicit” because they are said to affect “the continuity or functioning of the public service”.
In this case the request to dissolve the union came from two ministries — labour and education — and was decided by an administrative court.
Part of a longer sequence
The ruling is not an isolated case. In 2025, at least five union members faced detention and prosecution over their role in organising peaceful protests against deteriorating working conditions and contested legal reforms. Two of them were CNAPESTE representatives who remain under judicial supervision.
In February 2026, an appeals court sentenced the trade unionist Ali Mammeri to ten years in prison, in a case linked in particular to his work with the National Union of Civil Servants in the Field of Culture and Arts.
Earlier still, in 2021 and 2022, provisions of Algeria’s associations law were used to dissolve two civil society and human rights organisations.
What dissolution means
Dissolution ends a union’s legal existence: its capacity to bargain on behalf of its members, and to call or organise a strike in its own name. Teachers who belonged to CNAPESTE are left without the registered structure that carried their disputes with the education and labour ministries.
The rights to form and join trade unions and to assemble peacefully are protected under international human rights law.
This report was produced by the HuMedia newsroom.
