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Algerian journalist Ihsane El-Kadi, director of independent media Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, was sentenced on Tuesday (June 7th) by the Sidi M’Hamed court in Algiers to six months in prison without a warrant and 50 000 dinars (322 euros) fine. He was on trial for an analytical article published on March 23, 2021 in which he advocated the inclusion of the Islamo-conservative Rachad formation within the Hirak, the protest movement which had formed in February 2019 against a fifth term of the President Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
It was the former minister of communication and ex-journalist Amar Belhimer who brought proceedings against the boss of the two independent media for “dissemination of false information likely to undermine national unity”, “election disruption” and “reopening of the file of the national tragedy” of the 1990s in reference to the decade of internal war.
Ihsane El-Kadi’s lawyers stressed on May 17 during the trial that Mr. Belhimer had no legal right to sue the journalist, who is theoretically protected by the Constitution. Article 54 of the fundamental law enshrines the freedom of expression while emphasizing that the “press offense cannot be punished by a custodial sentence”.
Ihsane El-Kadi, who was in Oran for professional obligations when the verdict was announced, said his “anger and sadness” and announced that he will appeal the judgment. The journalist expected a suspended sentence against which he did not intend to appeal because, he said, a “second trial does not serve the press, nor justice, nor the reputation of the country”. But, he explained regretfully, “there will indeed be a second trial, because this verdict forces me to act with all my might to show the true image of it, that of a decision imposed by the executive power on the judiciary and within the executive, by the safe part ».
Concern of journalists
The verdict against Ihsane El-Kadi aroused the concern of Algerian journalists in a context of all-out repression against the activities of Hirak: 272 prisoners of conscience were listed at 1er June by the specialized site Algerian Detainees. Press professionals see in this judgment the illustration of an extension of prohibitions. Of the “red lines” all the more constraining as they are indefinite.
On April 19, 2021, Rabah Karèche, correspondent for Tamanrasset of the French-speaking daily Freedom – whose owner, the billionaire Issad Rebrab, decided in April to cease publication – had been imprisoned and then sentenced on appeal to one year in prison, including six months, for “creation of an electronic account dedicated to the dissemination of information likely to cause segregation and hatred in society”, “deliberate dissemination of false information likely to undermine public order” and “use of various means to undermine national security and unity”. The journalist had however only “covered” a demonstration of Tuaregs in the city of the Great South against a territorial division project.
“Ihsane El-Kadi’s conviction is as unexpected as it is shocking, declared to Worldjournalist Khaled Drareni, representative of Reporters Without Borders (RSF) in North Africa. We continue in Algeria to condemn journalists for their work while the law itself excludes prison in this case. »