In Algeria, the good news is that citizens no longer live in fear of being butchered by Islamist militants at makeshift roadblocks, or of being "disappeared" by hooded policemen who break down their front doors. But after turning the corner on a conflict between government forces and Islamist rebels that claimed more than 100,000 lives, mostly civilian, since 1992, Algeria is moving toward less, not more, freedom. The extraordinarily broad new "law implementing the charter on peace and national reconciliation" makes this clear. Never before has a government, in the guise of healing a nation after a fratricidal war, threatened to impose such heavy punishments on those who dare to pose critical questions about the past.