Torture was common in the Algerian War, and both the French and the pro-independence forces advertised the brutality of the other side. The French had the greatest means available to pick up and torture not just suspected opponents to their rule but also their neighbors, families, and even bystanders in buildings and on the street. The Algerians printed accounts by the score and circulated them around the world, eventually prompting a broad segment of global public opinion, some of it already shocked by the record of Axis torture and genocide, to oppose French colonialism. As the cases were verified, many more came to light. Here is a published account of the torture of a young woman, Djamila Boupacha, from her sworn deposition against the French. We have edited out some of the most horrific acts done to her.

On the night of 10th and 11th of February 1960, the police, Arab collaborators, and police inspectors—about fifty in all—got out of their jeeps and military trucks . . . and stopped at my parents’ house where I lived in Algiers. . . .

On the spot and without being taken away, I was beaten savagely. My brother-in-law Abedelli Ahmed who was also there, suffered the same fate as did my father Boupacha Abdelaziz, 70 years of age.

We were taken to the triage center El-Biar. There I received terrible blows which made me fall to the ground. That was when the soldiers, led by a parachutist captain, crushed my ribs with their boots. I still suffer today from deviated ribs on the left.

After four or five days, I was transferred to Hussein-Dey. It was, they told me, to receive “the second degree.” I soon found out what that meant: electric torture to begin with (the electrodes placed on my breasts did not stick so one of the torturers glued them to my skin with scotch tape), then they burned me in the same way on my legs, groin, genitals, and face. Electric torture alternated with cigarette burns, punches with fists, and water torture: suspended over a full bathtub, I was made to drink until suffocating.

Source: Sworn testimony, published in El Moudjahid 66 (June 20, 1960), reprinted in La Femme algerienne dans la revolution. Textes et témoignages inédits (Alger: ENAG/EDITIONS), 68–69. Translated by Bonnie G. Smith.

Question to Consider

What might have been the reaction of various groups, ethnicities, political parties, and regions of European and U.S. society to this testimony?