A private television channel, Lina TV, was closed on Monday, August 16 by the Ministry of Communication, judging that its activity “is outside the legal frameworks in force”.
For Abdelaziz Rahabi, diplomat and former Minister of Communication, “this” final closure “sums up the devastation that the erasure of justice and the absence of a legal framework can cause in the exercise of a sensitive activity delivered to an Administration. which acts as a state and for influential pressure and interest groups”.
The opportunity for the one who resigned from the government for differences with Bouteflika at the very beginning of his first term on the issue of freedom of expression, to review the state of this freedom and of the media in Algeria, more than 20 years later. Rahabi points to practices that have weakened the Algerian media, to the point of seeing Algeria’s sovereignty “eroded”.
“Freedom of expression has always been a power issue for us, successive rulers have used repression, blackmail, or corruption and sometimes all at the same time. They have resorted in particular to the political instrumentalization of institutional advertising, which has made this tool, despite being a proven sponsor of freedom of expression and democracy, an instrument of blackmail”, writes Rahabi, who quotes the daily at El Watan. as the latest victim of these practices, although he “rendered the Algerian state more services than many of its zealous, incompetent and corrupt servants”.
Abdelaziz Rahabi recalls that Bouteflika had in September 1999 blocked by the Council of Nation a law on advertising, presented under Zéroual in 1998 and voted by the AFN.
“This, he denounces, had the effect of giving back all the latitude to the administration and to a few decision-makers to distribute, without any form of control, public money and as they pleased, more than a billion and a half. euros in 20 years”.
“System slush”, “corruption nest” and “vector of all kinds of patronage” are the qualifiers he uses to describe this “perverted institutional advertising” whose monopoly is held by Anep. “It is deplorable that this persists with the same victim, freedom of expression and the modernization of the activity,” he regrets.
“Algeria feeds its bad image”
He also deplores the fact that ” Algerian sites are inaccessible from Algeria, their development is mortgaged and subject to all forms of constraints to leave this space to foreigners in a logic that defies all common sense and legitimately raises doubts about the real intentions. of certain principals”.
More clearly, Abdelaziz Rahabi finds that “the archaic attitude of the public authorities resistant to any form of change does not serve the interests of Algeria”.
Free expression, he believes, remains “a timeless marker of the identity of Algerians that it would be futile to deny or hinder in these times of globalization and digital reign”.
“Our country often engages in rearguard battles which multiply its weaknesses and make it waste time, resources, and the energy of its children,” notes Rahabi ink.
For him, “our sovereignty is eroded by our inability to produce quality content in the social networks which today and often from abroad shape our own public opinion.”
“Just as our national information system suffers from a lack of credibility and professionalism, which reduces its national impact and makes it inaudible internationally, while countries feed on their image, ours feeds its bad image.” Deplores the former Minister of Communication.
