Algeria: journalist Ihsane El-Kadi sentenced to six months in prison

The verdict targeting the director of Radio M and Maghreb Emergent is part of a general context of repression against the activists of the Hirak.

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The Algerian journalist Ihsane El-Kadi, Director of independent media Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, was sentenced on Tuesday June 7 by the court of Sidi M’hamed, in Algiers, to six months in prison without mandate as deposit and 50,000 dinars (322 euros) fine. He was tried for an analytical article published on March 23, 2021 in which he advocated the inclusion of the Islamo-Conservatory Rachad training within the Hirak, the protest movement which had formed in February 2019 against a fifth term of the President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.

It was the former Minister of Communication and Ex-Journalist Amar Belhimer who had initiated prosecution against the boss of the two independent media for “dissemination of false information capable of undermining national unity”, ” Disruptions of the elections “and” Reopening of the national tragedy file “of the 1990s in reference to the decade of domestic warfare.

The lawyers of Ihsane El-Kadi underlined, on May 17, during the trial that Mr. Belhimer did not legally have the right to prosecute the journalist, theoretically protected by the Constitution. Article 54 of the Basic Law consecrates freedom of expression while stressing that the “press crime cannot be sanctioned by a private sentence”.

Ihsane El-Kadi, who was in Oran for professional obligations at the time of the verdict statement, said his “anger and his sadness” and announced that he will appeal the judgment. The journalist expected a suspended sentence against which he did not intend to appeal because, he says, a “second trial does not serve the press, justice or the reputation of the country”. But, he explained with regret, “there will be a second trial, because this verdict constrains me to act with all my might to show the true image, that of a decision imposed by the executive power in power judicial and within the executive, by the security party “.

worry of journalists

The verdict against Ihsane El-Kadi aroused the concern of Algerian journalists in a context of all-out repression against Hirak’s activities: 272 Opinion detainees were listed at 1 er ^{June by The specialized site Algerian Detaines. Press professionals see in this judgment the illustration of an extension of prohibitions. “Red lines” all the more restrictive as they are indefinite.}

On April 19, 2021, Rabah Karèche, corresponding to Tamanrasset of the French -speaking daily newspaper Liberty – whose owner, the billionaire Issad Rebrab, decided in April to cease the publication – had been imprisoned and then sentenced to a year in prison, Including six firm months, for “creation of an electronic account devoted to the dissemination of information likely to cause segregation and hatred in society”, “voluntary dissemination of false information likely to attack public order” and “Use of various means to infringe on safety and national unity”. The journalist had however only “cover” a Tuareg demonstration in the city of the Great South against a territorial cutting project.