Belkacem Houam, of the Arabic -speaking daily “Echorouk”, was placed in detention following an article on exports of dates.
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Can we still do journalism in Algeria? Professionals in the sector ask themselves the question after the surprise incarceration, Thursday, September 8, of Belkacem Houam, of the Arabic -speaking daily Echorouk, following an article on the dismissal of “deglet nour” dates ( especially in France ) due to the presence of a Pesticide prohibited in the European Union.
The article, published on Wednesday, reported criticism of exporters, not mentioned namely, about the management of the use of pesticides by the authorities. He also indicated that an “immediate” decision to export dates had been made by the Ministry of Commerce. The latter reacted the same day, denouncing an article “based on unjustified information, devoid of any basis and attack on the national economy and the wealth that the country conceals”. He announced in the process that he was going to take “all the measures necessary against the author of the article and the newspaper concerned, including legal proceedings before the competent courts”.
The updates of the Ministry of Commerce and, later, of the Ministry of Agriculture seemed sufficient to close the subject, but things will get carried away unexpectedly. While the newspaper Echorouk was the subject of a refusal of printing at the State Printing, Belkacem Houam, convened by the courts, was placed in pre -triming at El Harrach prison, in Algiers.
from three to thirty years in prison
The news caused general amazement. “Never a journalist must go to prison for this,” said the Twala Information Site, while Khaled Drareni, representative of reporters Without Borders (RSF) in North Africa, calls for the journalist’s release by recalling that The Algerian constitution provides that “the crime of press cannot be punished by a private sentence”. “It is the physical integrity of the media professional who, now, is immediately at stake,” writes Ihsane El-Kadi, director of Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, sentenced in June to six months in prison for an article D ‘Opinion on the place of the Islamo-conservative movement Rachad on the political spectrum.
Belkacem Houam is prosecuted under a law “relating to the fight against illicit speculation”. Promulgated in December 2021, during the COVVI-19 crisis, it incriminates in particular “the dissemination of news or false or slanderous information knowingly propagated in the public in order to cause a market disturbance and a sudden and not justified increase in price “. He faces a sentence ranging from three to thirty years in prison. Tetanized by the news, journalists called for a rally at the Maison de la Presse Abdelkader-Safir in Kouba, in Algiers, Wednesday September 14.