New York, October 20, 2023—Algerian authorities must immediately and unconditionally drop the charges against journalists Saad Bouakba, Zobeir Fadhl, Salim Salehi, and Adel Laazizi, and ensure the media can work freely without fear of imprisonment, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Friday.
On October 18, the Dar el-Beida court in the capital, Algiers, convicted freelance journalist Bouakba of inciting hate, discrimination, and distributing publications harmful to the national interest, in connection with a February 2 article he wrote criticizing President Abdelmajid Tebboune’s livestock project in the city of Djelfa, south of Algiers The article was published by local independent news website el-Madar TV.
During that same hearing, the court convicted Salehi and Laazizi, el-Madar TV managers, and Fadhl, a reporter at local independent news website al-Khabar, on the same charges, according to news reports and Salehi, who added that Fadhl’s charges stem from republishing the February 2 article on al-Khabar.
The court sentenced Bouakba and Fadhl to one year in prison on a six-month suspended sentence and issued a fine of 200,000 dinars (US$1,450), which they appealed, according to those sources. Bouakba and Fadhl are not currently in custody, and their appeal hearing has not yet been scheduled.
The court sentenced in absentia Salehi and Laazizi to three years in prison for publishing the February 2 article on el-Madar. Salehi and Laazizi are both based in London, and they plan to appeal the verdict, according to Salehi.
“Sentencing journalists Saad Bouakba and Zobeir Fadhl to one year in prison and journalists Salim Salehi and Adel Laazizi to three years over an article is a clear example of the Algerian government’s determination to crack down on press freedom,” said Sherif Mansour, CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa program coordinator from Washington, D.C. “Algerian authorities must immediately drop the charges against these journalists, and allow members of the press to work freely without intimidation.”
Bouakba, who covers local political news in his el-Madar TV column, “Noktet Nizam,” previously contributed to Saudi broadcaster al-Arabiya, according to CPJ’s review of his work.
When CPJ conducted its most recent annual prison census on December 1, 2022, one journalist was imprisoned in Algeria. Since then, authorities have arrested and sentenced journalists Ihsane el-Kadi, Mustapha Bendjama, and Raouf Farrah.
CPJ’s email to the Algerian Ministry of Interior did not receive a response.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.
Committee to Protect Journalists | Radio Free (2023-10-20T14:30:54+00:00) Algerian authorities deliver hefty prison sentences to journalists Saad Bouakba and 3 others. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2023/10/20/algerian-authorities-deliver-hefty-prison-sentences-to-journalists-saad-bouakba-and-3-others/
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