\n
The director of a television station is arrested... a court blocks the sale of an opposition media group... parliament passes a law to stop retired army officers commenting on politics.<\/p>\n
Despite a new constitution in Algeria guaranteeing freedom of the press, criticising the government is becoming increasingly risky.<\/p>\n
Producers at KBC TV, a privately owned channel which airs a talk show that regularly criticises the government, know that only too well.<\/p>\n
In late June, a court placed two of the channel's executives in pre-trial detention.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The order came five days after security forces shut down a studio producing talk shows for KBC.<\/p>\n
The channel's director, Mehdi Benaissa, and producer Ryad Hartouf were accused of making \"false declarations\" to obtain filming permits for the programme, Ki Hna Ki Ness (Just Like Everybody Else).<\/p>\n
Mounia Nedjai, a culture ministry official who had issued the permits, was also detained.<\/p>\n
On Friday evening, around 300 artists and journalists gathered outside the National Theatre in the capital to demand their release.<\/p>\n
\"I'm not a sycophant or an agitator, I just love my country,\" they chanted.<\/p>\n
International NGOs criticised the arrests.<\/p>\n
\"Jailing TV executives on the pretext of film-permit irregularities is disproportionate, to say the least,\" said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director of Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n
\"The clear intent is to muzzle private media.\"<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
- Repeated attacks -<\/h2>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It was not the first time KBC has found itself in the government's crosshairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In June, the government won a court case to freeze a bid by billionaire Issad Rebrab to buy KBC and one of Algeria's top newspapers, El Khabar (The News).<\/p>\n
The $45-million (40-million-euro) sale is expected to be definitively blocked by mid-July.<\/p>\n
Rebrab is Algeria's richest entrepreneur but has a tense relationship with the authorities.<\/p>\n
Like KBC and El Khabar, Rebrab's French-language daily Liberte strongly opposed Abdelaziz Bouteflika's decision to stand for a fourth term as president in 2014, an election he won.<\/p>\n
The ailing 79-year-old suffered a stroke in 2013 that has impeded his mobility and speech. Speculation has been growing in the Algerian press about who will succeed him.<\/p>\n
Opposition leaders have spoken of a power vacuum.<\/p>\n
Former prime minister Ali Benflis, who stood against Bouteflika in 2014, condemned the latest arrests and denounced the government for \"repeated attacks on independent media\".<\/p>\n
He said the government was \"a regime that doesn't hold back from any excess\" and \"persists in placing itself above the constitution and the law\".<\/p>\n
Amnesty International said the charges against the KBC TV executives and Nedjai were \"politically motivated\".\u00a0<\/p>\n
It called on the Algerian authorities to \"respect, protect and promote freedom of the media following the growing restrictions against independent outlets and journalists in the past few months\".<\/p>\n
The government cited a law preventing a single legal entity owning more than one Algerian daily newspaper.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Media watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) called the court ruling \"extremely worrying\".\u00a0<\/p>\n
It said it was \"outraged\" at the \"new attack on the independence of KBC\", and demanded the trio's release.<\/p>\n
Algeria's constitution, adopted in February, explicitly guarantees freedoms of assembly and the press, dictating that \"press offences may not be punished by a custodial sentence\".<\/p>\n
Communications Minister Hamid Grine has denied that Algeria jails journalists who offend the government.<\/p>\n
\"A journalist would never go to prison\" for a press offence, he said in May.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
- Draconian drift -<\/h2>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
Mehdi Benaissa's father Slimane, a well-known dramatist, wrote an open letter to Bouteflika on Sunday.<\/p>\n
\"I am a worried and angry father. Worried because my son is in prison, and angry because I don't know exactly why,\" he wrote in the letter, published by the opposition newspaper Le Soir d'Algerie.<\/p>\n
Louisa Hanoune, a Trotskyist member of parliament and former presidential candidate, condemned the government's \"totalitarian intentions\" and said it was promoting \"draconian laws contrary to the constitution\".<\/p>\n
Parliament, which is dominated by Bouteflika supporters, last week passed a law limiting the right of retired senior military officers to comment on politics.<\/p>\n
The new law demands that former soldiers abstain from \"every act, remark or behaviour likely to harm the institutions of the state and public authorities\".<\/p>\n
Some retired military figures regularly comment on political issues. One retired general, Hocine Benhadid, has been in custody for more than a year after criticising the government.<\/p>\n
Ahead of last week's vote, former defence minister Khaled Nezzar, the country's strongman during its civil war in the 1990s, urged parliamentarians to reject the text.<\/p>\n
He said it represented a \"grave draconian drift\".<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 The director of a television station is arrested... a court blocks the sale of an opposition media group... parliament passes a law to stop retired army officers commenting on politics. Despite a new constitution in Algeria guaranteeing freedom of the press, criticising the government is becoming increasingly risky. Producers at KBC TV, a privately […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[2093],"class_list":["post-28176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed","ji_location-algeria"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
Press under pressure from Algeria's 'draconian drift' - JusticeInfo.net<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.justiceinfo.net\/en\/28176-press-under-pressure-from-algeria-s-draconian-drift.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Press under pressure from Algeria's 'draconian drift'\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0 The director of a television station is arrested... a court blocks the sale of an opposition media group... parliament passes a law to stop retired army officers commenting on politics. Despite a new constitution in Algeria guaranteeing freedom of the press, criticising the government is becoming increasingly risky. 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