Thursday at the end of the day, several arrests targeted journalists and activists in Algiers and other cities two days before the holding of the early legislative elections on Saturday, June 12.
According to Radio M, “the journalist and director of the two emerging media Radio M and Maghreb, Ihsane El Kadi was arrested by security services when he left his office in Algiers center on Thursday, June 10, 2021 at the end of the afternoon. “.
Ihsane El Kadi had been placed under judicial control on May 18 following a complaint filed by the Ministry of Communication for “undermining the security and integrity of national unity”, and “publications which harm the ‘national interest’.
Khaled Drareni arrested
The Ministry of Communication accuses the journalist of the publication of an article on March 23 in which the media boss pleaded against the “demonization” of the Rachad movement, an organization of opponents in exile formed in particular of former cadres of the Islamic Front of the salut (FIS), dissolved in 1992, and classified as “terrorist” by the authorities.
The other journalist arrested yesterday at the end of the day in Algiers is Khaled Drareni, founder of the information site Casbah Tribune, and correspondent in Algeria for TV5 Monde and for Reporters Without Borders (RSF). Arrested several times in 2019 and 2020 during the hirak demonstrations, he was finally placed under a committal warrant on March 29, 2020 and sentenced, on September 15, to two years in prison for “inciting unarmed assembly and attack on the integrity of the national territory ”.
Drareni was released from prison on February 19, 2021 – along with around 30 inmates – as part of a presidential pardon.
The third personality arrested yesterday is Karim Tabbou, leader of the Democratic and Social Union (UDS, unapproved party). Tabbou was sentenced first for “undermining the morale of the army” and then for “inciting violence” and spent several months in prison before his release on July 2, 2020.
He was taken into police custody, before being released and placed under judicial supervision at the end of April, following a complaint from the president of the National Human Rights Council (CNDH, official), with whom he had an altercation during the funeral of the founder of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, Ali Yahia Abdennour.
Ihsane El Kadi, Khaled Drareni and Karim Tabbou were, according to lawyers and their relatives, questioned and kept in police custody in one of the internal security centers on the heights of Algiers. They were able to contact their relatives by telephone late at night to inform them of their place of detention.
222 arrests
According to the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD), other activists were arrested Thursday elsewhere than in Algiers, while the same day, the prosecutor of the Algiers court announced the arrest of ten people who would be members of a “cell which incited assemblies and attacks on national security”. Twelve other people are on the run, some of them abroad, according to the prosecutor, who mentioned France and the United States.
At least 222 people are currently imprisoned for acts related to the hirak and / or individual freedoms, according to the CNLD, while weekly demonstrations have been banned since the end of May.
These arrests come at the time when the authorities proceeded, this Thursday, to an amendment of the Penal Code, by creating a “national list of persons and terrorist entities”, according to the press release of the Council of Ministers and by broadening the definition of the terrorist act or sabotage to “any act aimed at the security of the State, national unity and the stability and normal functioning of institutions by any action aimed at”.
Terrorism: broadening of the definition
The new definition also encompasses any action aimed at “working or inciting, by any means whatsoever, to gain power or to change the system of governance by non-constitutional means”, or “to undermine the integrity of the national territory. or incite to do so, by any means whatsoever ”.
The Rachad movements and the MAK (Movement for the Autonomy of Kabylia) were classified by the authorities on May 18 as “terrorist organizations”. These two movements have often been accused by the authorities of pushing violence, taking advantage of the hirak marches. Both movements refute these accusations.
In addition, collectives, associations, parties and personalities published a declaration rejecting the legislative elections: “Algeria is locked into an undeclared state of emergency policy: closure of all public places, prevention of demonstrations. and any peaceful expression calling for democratic change. While rooms and media channels are open to promote the June 12 deadline. ”
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