Since its creation in 1992, Liberté has been able to resist pressure from Islamists as well as from those in power. But its owner, Issad Rebrab, decided to put an end to the adventure. Explanations.
A thunderclap in the Algerian media landscape: the daily Liberté, one of the flagships of the French-speaking independent press, risks closing its doors permanently from April 6.
Its main shareholder, the businessman and billionaire Issad Rebrab, founder and owner of Cevital, the country’s leading private group, has in fact announced his intention to organize, on April 6, a general meeting whose agenda will be the filing for bankruptcy and the pure and simple dissolution of the title.
As soon as it became known, this scuttling decision caused amazement and incomprehension within the editorial staff, whose journalists and employees met and organized as a collective to try to get the businessman to reverse this unexpected decision.
A waste of time: on April 2, Malik Rebrab, general manager of the Cevital group, son of the owner Issad Rebrab and his probable successor, went to the newspaper’s headquarters to confirm his father’s decision to record the dissolution of the title, evoking an “irreversible decision”.
THE DAILY WAS HOWEVER EXPECTED TO RETURN TO PROFIT BY THE END OF THE YEAR
“We were not notified prior to this completely unjustified decision-making. Why liquidate the newspaper when there are many other solutions, such as its takeover by a collective of journalists or its transformation into a news site if the paper version is no longer profitable?”, pleads, under the seal of anonymity, one of the journalists reached by telephone.
Other sources within the newspaper say that if the title has indeed experienced financial difficulties due to the shortfall following the health crisis, it has been in the process of rebalancing its accounts for a few months.
It was even, according to its financial director, to return to profit by the end of the year. So there remains the trail of political motives. Twice in recent months, the newspaper has come under heavy criticism from the authorities.
At loggerheads with Tebboune
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune himself accused the title of “throwing oil on the fire” after a file devoted to the shortage of basic food products. A few weeks later, it was the turn of Sonatrach, the hydrocarbon company that provides most of the country’s foreign exchange earnings, to accuse the newspaper of having knowingly distorted the words of its CEO, who had given an interview in writing to one of its journalists.
Sonatrach filed a lawsuit for defamation. An official of the newspaper, as well as the journalist who carried out the interview, were interviewed for a long time before the latter was notified of his placement under judicial control.
ISSAD REBRAB SIMPLY SEEKS TO PLEASE THOSE IN POWER AND GIVE THEM GUARANTEES OF NEUTRALITY
“The problem is that each time Liberté is critical, the authorities think that it is Rebrab who is behind these ‘attacks’ and who continues to play politics through his newspaper,” our sources say.
“Filing for bankruptcy for financial difficulties is totally unjustified. By wanting to scuttle the newspaper, Issad Rebrab is simply trying to please the government and give it guarantees of neutrality,” said another journalist, who also requested anonymity.
As a reminder, the founder of Cevital was released from prison on December 31, 2019, after eight months in pre-trial detention. Prosecuted for tax, banking, and customs offenses, the businessman had been sentenced to eighteen months in prison, including six months, while the prosecution had requested a year. However, since his release, Rebrab has been very discreet and has imposed a silence that he is not accustomed to.
The country’s leading private group, Cevital has been faced with a considerable drop in its export revenues since the decision taken on March 13 by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to ban the export of mass consumption food products locally processed with raw materials. first imports.
Algeria’s leading producer of sugar and oil, Cevital was thus forced to shut down the production lines of its refinery located in the port of Bejaïa and lay off 800 employees.
“Dark Decade”
Founded on June 27, 1992, by three journalists and Issad Rebrab, Liberté was resolutely in the democratic camp with an editorial line opposed to Islamist fundamentalism and autocratic power. During the “dark decade” of the Islamist maquis, four employees of the title, including two journalists, were shot dead by terrorist groups.
The newspaper has also seen its journalists and managers summoned to police stations and before the courts on several occasions to answer for articles or files deemed too critical. In August 2003, it was even suspended from publication for a week along with other titles from the independent press.
WE DID NOT RESIST THE BULLETS OF TERRORISM AND THE HARASSMENT OF POWER TO SEE ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF THE NEWSPAPER SCUTTLE IT
Journalists and employees are determined to fight. “There is no question of accepting this killing. We are determined to fight to keep the newspaper alive and healthy. We did not resist the bullets of Islamist terrorism and the judicial and police harassment of power to see one of its founders scuttle it,” assures one of its journalists.
This Sunday, April 3, a hundred Algerian intellectuals, researchers, academics and artists, including Yasmina Khadra, Boualem Sansal, Kamel Daoud and Mohamed Fellag, are calling for the preservation of the title “whose history is intertwined with that of Algeria. contemporary”.
The appeal stresses that the newspaper “also belongs to its readers in their diversity. Its disappearance would be a huge loss for media pluralism. A hard blow for the democratic achievements torn from hard struggle and sacrifices. A great loss for the country”.
In a press release published by the collective of the newspaper on April 3, the employees and journalists expressed their amazement at this decision, at a time when the newspaper had “undertaken a series of measures aimed at improving the economic situation of the company”. “Beyond the disappearance of an emblematic title and its consequences on the situation of its personnel, the liquidation of Liberté marks the end of a certain idea of Algeria”, conclude with bitterness the editors of the press release.
