Eight people associated with the popular protest movement in Algeria were arrested for subversive activities financed by a chancellery “of a large foreign country”, the General Directorate of National Security (DGSN) said on Tuesday.
“The security services have arrested a criminal association made up of eight people aged 26 to 60 years active under the guise of a cultural association, not approved, in Bab El Oued”, popular district of Algiers, specified the DGSN in a report. communicated.
This association has acquired modern technological equipment thanks to “the financing of a diplomatic representation in Algiers of a large foreign country”, she added without identifying this country.
The funding allowed the association “to produce films, provocative documents” and “leaflets calling for violence” during the demonstrations of the anti-power movement, Hirak, according to the text. Officials of the association “recognized this funding under the guise of cultural activities”, according to the same source.
In a photo relayed on social networks, we see men handcuffed from behind, heads down, between two police officers, behind the seized equipment.
The association is not named but the same day SOS Bab El Oued activists, including its president Nacer Maghnine, were presented to the prosecutor of the Bab El Oued court, according to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD). . Mr. Maghnine was placed under a warrant of committal.
The activists were arrested during a demonstration Friday in Algiers.
After these arrests, the headquarters of the association “SOS Bab El Oued” was raided, and “677 banners, seven computers, an ultra-modern digital camera, 3 scanners and 12 printers were seized”, according to the CNLD .
According to the collective of defense lawyers, part of the funding alleged against the defendants dates back to 2019.
– Student walks –
At the beginning of April, President Abdelmadjid Tebboune warned the Hirak demonstrators against any “slippage” and “non-innocent activities”.
With the approach of the early parliamentary elections in June, the government seems determined to tighten the screws against anti-power activists who call for a boycott of the ballot boxes.
The CNLD reported a dozen arrests Tuesday before the weekly march of students in front of the university of Tizi Ouzou, in Kabylia (north-east).
Other marches were organized in Kabylia, Bejaïa and Bouira, on the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the “Black Spring”, riots born from the death of a high school student in a gendarmerie, repressed in blood (126 dead) .
In Algiers, some 200 demonstrators marched to demand the release of prisoners of conscience; “Free our children to fast with us” during Ramadan.
“Macron, enemy of the Algerian people,” read a sign alluding to French President Emmanuel Macron. France is regularly accused by the protesters of supporting Mr. Tebboune, shouted in the processions.
Born in February 2019 from the massive rejection of a 5th term of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the Hirak calls for a radical change in the political “system” in place since independence in 1962.
He is today accused by the authorities of being infiltrated by Islamist activists, heirs of the (dissolved) Islamic Salvation Front, who would seek to drag the Hirak into a violent confrontation.
