The Algiers Court of Appeal has postponed the start of a new trial against journalist Khaled Drareni to December 2, who was to be retried Thursday for “inciting unarmed assembly” and “undermining the ‘national unity, AFP journalists noted.
Mr. Drareni, founder of the information site Casbah Tribune and correspondent in Algeria for the French-speaking channel TV5 Monde, is also a collaborator in the activities of the NGO Reporters Without Borders. Incarcerated in March 2020, he received a presidential pardon in February in favor of detainees from the Hirak pro-democracy movement.
The independent journalist has since been on bail. The Supreme Court had canceled in March 2021 the first trial against him which had been the subject of a cassation appeal by his lawyers.
Mr. Drareni was sentenced in September 2020 to two years in prison for “inciting unarmed assembly” and “undermining national unity”, after covering a demonstration of the Hirak protest movement in March 2020.
Media suppression
Several Algerian journalists are currently in detention, including Mohamed Mouloudj of the French-language daily Liberté, who was indicted and imprisoned in mid-September for “belonging to a terrorist organization” and “disseminating false information”.
A second journalist from this daily, Rabah Karèche, has also been imprisoned since mid-April for “deliberately disseminating false information liable to undermine public order”.
He was sentenced in August to one year in prison, including eight months closed, by the court in Tamanrasset (south). His appeal trial is scheduled for October 4 in this city, according to the National Committee for the Release of Detainees.
Algerian journalist and human rights defender Hassan Bouras has been in pre-trial detention since September 12. He was charged with “belonging to a terrorist organization, advocating terrorism, and conspiring against state security to change the system of governance”.
Reporters Without Borders deplored Wednesday “the intensification of attacks on the press over the past three months and the repressive drift of the Algerian authorities”, in a statement.
This NGO called on “the Algerian authorities to put a stop to the attacks which may affect in a lasting way the right to inform journalists and the right of Algerian citizens to be properly informed”.
Algeria occupies 146th place out of 180 countries in Reporters Without Borders world press freedom ranking.
