Human rights defender Hassan Bouras was remanded in custody on Sunday, notably for “belonging to a terrorist organization”.
In Algeria, the journalist and human rights defender Hassan Bouras was placed in pre-trial detention on Sunday, September 12, notably for “apologizing for terrorism”, we learned from one of his lawyers.
Mr. Bouras was charged with “belonging to a terrorist organization, apologizing for terrorism, and conspiring against state security aimed at changing the system of governance,” lawyer Abdelghani Badi told AFP.
The journalist, who was imprisoned after his hearing by an investigating judge at the Sidi M’Hamed court in Algiers, is also being prosecuted for “using technology and media means to enlist individuals against the authority of the State”, according to the lawyer.
The authorities arrested Mr. Bouras on September 6 and searched his home in El Bayadh (north-west), for unknown reasons, then denounced the Algerian League for Human Rights (LADDH), of which the journalist is a member. Mr. Bouras was sentenced to one year in prison in 2016 for having “insulted a judge, a member of the public forces and a government body”.
The human rights organization Amnesty International then described Mr. Bouras as a “prisoner of conscience” and declared that he had been convicted “for a video denouncing the corruption of local officials in the town of El Bayadh”.
According to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD), around 200 people are in prison in connection with the pro-democracy protest movement Hirak, which has shaken the country sporadically since 2019.
