The director of the Algerian station Radio M and the Maghreb Emergent news site, Ihsane El-Kadi, arrested on Friday, was formally placed in pre-trial detention on Thursday (December 29th), announced the media he heads. Mr. El-Kadi is being prosecuted on the basis of articles of the penal code relating to publications and donations, according to Maghreb Emergent, which specifies that its director is notably being prosecuted under article 95 bis.
This text provides for a prison sentence of five to seven years for “Anyone who receives funds, a gift or an advantage … to perform or incite to perform acts likely to undermine the security of the State, the stability and the normal functioning of its institutions, national unity, territorial integrity, to the fundamental interests of Algeria or to public security and order..
Mr. El-Kadi was brought before the prosecutor “in the absence of his lawyers who have not been notified”for its part declared Radio M.
Wave of solidarity
The day after Mr. El-Kadi’s arrest, the headquarters of the Interface Media agency, which publishes Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, had been sealed and the equipment seized, according to these media. The arrest of Mr. El-Kadi and the sealing of the media offices he heads sparked a wave of solidarity among his colleagues and human rights activists in Algeria and Europe. An online petition calling for his release has garnered nearly eight hundred signatures.
Reacting to his placement in pre-trial detention, the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF) considered that this measure was “the culmination of a long persecution and endless judicial harassment whose obvious objective is to silence one of the last Algerian media still open to free debate and criticism”.
“By deciding to place Ihsane El-Kadi in detention, the authorities have clearly chosen to go to the end of their authoritarian logic to muzzle the media and send a heavy message to those who continue to defend freedom of information”said Khaled Drareni, RSF representative in North Africa.
Prosecuted for a press article, Mr. El-Kadi was sentenced in June to six months in prison, a sentence confirmed on appeal but not accompanied by a warrant of committal. He was tried following a complaint by the former Minister of Communication, Ammar Belhimer, for an article published on the Radio M website on the Islamist movement Rachad, classified as a terrorist organization in Algeria, and the Hirak, prodemocrat. For RSF, Mr. El-Kadi “probably pays the price for his articles critical of the authorities and for the independence of the media he directs”.
Algeria is in the 134e place (out of 180) in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index established by RSF.