Thirty Hirak prisoners were released on Friday in Algeria, after a pardon granted by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, three days before the 2nd anniversary of this movement to contest power. The detention of journalist Khaled Drareni, who has become the symbol of the fight for press freedom in Algeria, has also ended.
Algeria released on Friday February 19 more than 30 prisoners of conscience the day after a pardon granted by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, three days before the 2nd anniversary of the Algerian protest movement Hirak. Journalist Khaled Drareni, who has become a symbol of the fight for press freedom, has also regained his freedom, according to an announcement by his lawyer to AFP.
Réaction à chaud de Khaled Drareni dans la voiture, en route vers chez lui pour retrouver chez proches. Quelle merveilleuse journée.
INOUBLIABLE. ✌️ pic.twitter.com/bOinFOJBff— Moncef Ait-Kaci (منصف آيت قاسي) (@Moncefaitkaci) February 19, 2021
“He is free”, declared Friday evening Abdelaghani Badi, one of the lawyers of Khaled Drareni, correspondent in Algeria of the channel TV5 Monde and Reporters Without Borders (RSF), specifying that it was about a measure of “provisional release”.
“A total of 33 people have been released so far. The rest of the proceedings are underway,” said a statement from the Ministry of Justice a few hours earlier, without specifying their names.
Photos and videos posted on social networks show detainees reuniting with their relatives in several regions of the country. In front of the Koléa prison, west of Algiers, families, relatives, journalists and activists awaited the release of the prisoners.
Many were hoping for the release of journalist Khaled Drareni, sentenced to two years in prison last September and become the symbol of the fight for press freedom in Algeria. Shortly before his release, it was not certain that the correspondent in Algeria for the TV5 Monde channel and Reporters Without Borders, could benefit from the presidential measure.
Khaled Drareni, 40, was waiting for the Supreme Court to rule on his cassation appeal on February 25.
According to activist Zaki Hannache, involved in the defense of prisoners of conscience, these releases took place in particular in the wilayas (prefectures) of Bordj Bou Arreridj, Tebessa, M’sila (east), Saïda (west), as well as in the South, in Tamanrasset and Adrar.
Thursday, February 18, in a long-awaited speech to the Nation, Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced a presidential pardon in favor of dozens of Hirak detainees, perceived as a gesture of appeasement towards the protest movement.
“Not enough”
Rachid Nekkaz was also released, according to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD). The 47-year-old opponent, imprisoned in El Bayadh prison (southwest), began a hunger strike on Friday to protest his prolonged detention, without trial, despite the deterioration of his state of health according to his entourage .
This opponent has been detained since December 2019, but his trial has still not been scheduled. His requests for provisional release were rejected. He is being prosecuted in particular for “inciting unarmed assemblies” and “publications that could undermine national unity”.
Among the detainees released Friday, there is also a Hirak activist, Dalila Touat, known as the spokesperson for the unemployed in Mostaganem (north-west). She had been imprisoned and on hunger strike since January 3.
Thursday, February 18, in a long-awaited speech to the Nation, Abdelmadjid Tebboune announced a presidential pardon in favor of dozens of Hirak detainees, perceived as a gesture of appeasement towards the protest movement. “The blessed‘ Hirak ‘saved Algeria. I decided to grant a presidential pardon (…) Between 55 and 60 people will join their families “by Friday evening, he declared.
“In all, between 55 and 60 people will join their families from this evening or tomorrow,” he promised, referring to those pardoned, without disclosing any names. A tweet from the Algerian presidency clarified that the measure concerned “perpetrators of crimes related to information and communication technologies”.
Presidential pardon of February 18, 2021: 11:30 a.m .: Badi Allal (Tamanrasset), Lahcen Ben Cheikh (Bordj Bou Arreridj), …
Posted by National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees – CNLD on Friday, February 19, 2021
According to the CNLD, some 70 people are currently in prison in connection with the “Hirak” and / or individual freedoms. Prosecutions based in at least 90% of cases on publications critical of the authorities on social networks. The CNLD published “a list of prisoners of conscience” released on Friday February 19.
“The people are not satisfied with the government’s decisions, we want to build an independent and free country, and this grace is far from sufficient”, reacted to AFP Moussa Abdelli, a 57-year-old taxi driver.
Several activists, on the other hand, welcomed these releases while the country is undermined by a triple political, economic and health crisis.
The day after his election in December 2019, Mr. Tebboune granted pardon to 76 detainees, including figures from Hirak, released on January 2, 2020.
This new gesture of appeasement by the president, as soon as he returned from a long hospitalization in Germany, comes before the 2nd anniversary of Hirak, on February 22, 2019, which forced the former strongman Abdelaziz Bouteflika to leave power.
The Hirak continues to demonstrate against the political “system”
President Tebboune’s initiative comes on the eve of Hirak’s second anniversary, February 22, 2019, which forced ex-strongman Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down in April 2019.
The Hirak, suspended since last March due to the health crisis, resumed its march a few days before the anniversary date.
The movement continues to demand the dismantling of the political “system” in place since the independence of Algeria in 1962. Calls to demonstrate Monday February 22 throughout the country are circulating on social networks.
Thousands of Algerians had already gathered on Tuesday February 16 in Kherrata (east), a city considered to be the cradle of the uprising, to demand “the fall of the regime” and “the release of prisoners of conscience”.
According to activists, demonstrations also took place on Friday in Khenchela and Sétif (east).
Police forces and riot vehicles were deployed in large numbers on Friday, the traditional day of the Hirak marches, in central Algiers.
“Apart from the release of the detainees (…), Tebboune still maintains his roadmap and his agenda to go to the legislative elections to complete the Hirak”, deplores Saïd Salhi, vice-president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Rights of man (LADDH).
Abdelmadjid Tebboune has promised to dissolve the National Assembly and to organize early legislative elections by the end of the year.
A cabinet reshuffle should also take place “within 48 hours at most”.
“By offering electoral perspectives and participation in political life, the president hopes to change the situation, and put political life back in the institutions to extract it definitively from the streets”, analyzes Abed Charef.
