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Algeria: Regime jails human rights activist Abdelouahab Fersaoui
Algiers, April 6, 2020 - An Algerian court on Monday sentenced another leading figure in the country's anti-regime protest movement to one year in jail, keeping up a crackdown on activists despite the coronavirus crisis, a support group said. Abdelouahab Fersaoui,...
Algeria’s political police unleash terror on journalists and others
Journalist Meriem Chorfi, Editor-in-chief Mouhoub Rafik, and Mohamed Laamari, the Publisher of Algerian newspaper Sawt Al Akher were placed on Thursday, 2 April under judicial control. The move is the last step before they are dragged into a court, most likely the one...
Algeria’s political police punishes another journalist
Algiers, April 5, 2020 - An Algerian court on Sunday sentenced to eight months in jail a journalist who had provided images of months-long anti-government protests to foreign media, a prisoners' support group and a non-government organisation said. Sofiane Merakchi,...
Covid-19 in Algeria: China to the rescue
Algiers, April 4, 2020 - As adversity strikes in the form of the coronavirus pandemic, Algeria has found a helping hand in China, an old friend and the top exporter to Africa's largest country. An Air Algerie plane arrived in the capital Algiers from Beijing on March...
Maghreb: Media as collateral damage of Covid-19
April 2, 2020 - Measures to stem the novel coronavirus pandemic have affected the distribution and publication of newspapers across Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria, according to local media and officials. In Tunisia, seven daily newspapers and 20 weeklies have been...
Algeria is committing “acts of physical endangerment” with revenge arrests
April 3, 2020 - Reporters Without Borders has accused Algeria's government of taking advantage of the coronavirus epidemic to "settle scores" with independent journalists, including those covering long-running anti-government protests. In a statement co-signed with...
Algeria: Food shortages lead to breaches in social distancing and confinement rules
The coronavirus is creating acute shortages of high-consumption foods and commodities. Despite the calls for social distancing, with Algeria ordering a distance of at least one meter between people, there have been mass gatherings of people looking to buy semolina and...
Algeria: Inner-clan warfare continues inside the regime, ex-head of police gets stiff prison sentence
Algiers, April 1, 2020 - An Algerian court issued heavy prison sentences Wednesday to a powerful former police chief and his family for illicit gains and misappropriation of land, local media reported. Abdelaghani Hamel, a former national security director-general,...
Sport: Mediterranean Games pushed to 2022 due to Covid-19
Algiers, March 31, 2020 - The 2021 Mediterranean Games have been postponed a year until 2022 as a result of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, Algeria's sports minister Sid Ali Khaldi said Tuesday. The Games were scheduled for Algeria's second city, Oran, from...
Algeria: A dictator’s cozy retirement and the whereabouts of Bouteflika
Algiers, March 31, 2020 - A year after the unexpected downfall of Algeria's longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, the ailing octogenarian remains holed up in his plush and medically adapted home, with his detractors still demanding justice. Bouteflika assumed the...
MENA (MidEast/North Africa) regimes increase their repression
Cairo, March 29, 2020 - Armoured vehicles in the streets, hundreds arrested, smartphone surveillance -- sweeping measures to fight the coronavirus have raised concerns in the Middle East over the erosion of already threatened human rights. As the world battles the...
Algeria jails more journalists despite Covid-19
Algiers, March 29, 2020 - An Algerian journalist was Sunday ordered to be held in pre-trial detention, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) and rights organisations said. "Our correspondent in Algeria, Khaled Drareni, has been incarcerated," RSF...
Algerian regime takes advantage of Covid-19 crisis to arrest opponents and journalists
Algiers, March 27, 2020 - An Algerian journalist was arrested on Friday, press freedom group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) said, accusing the country's government of using the coronavirus crisis to crack down on independent media. Khaled Drareni, who serves as...
North Africa faces unprecedented economic crisis
Listen to the podcast above or read the transcript below. Download MP3 file here. 26 March 2020: By Arezki Daoud: North Africa is bracing for an unprecedented economic contraction, even if the coronavirus crisis were to be contained soon. The fundamentals of economic...
The disastrous confinement of the poor and the mediocrity of Maghreb regimes
March 25, 2020 (By Sophie Pons) - In Algeria, Tunisia and Morocco, workers in informal jobs fear not only the novel coronavirus, but how they will survive emergency measures that have cut off their livelihoods. "We are stuck at home, with no work and no pay," said...
Algeria: Appeals court uphold prison sentences for corrupt former Prime Ministers
Algiers, March 25, 2020 - An Algerian appeals court has upheld sentences of over ten years in prison for two former prime ministers under ex-president Abdelaziz Bouteflika following an unprecedented corruption trial, a judicial source said Wednesday. The Algiers...
Algeria: Taking advantage of a freeze in the Hirak, regime decides to keep Karim Tabbou in prison
On 24 March, an Algiers Court canceled the release from prison of political activist Karim Tabbou, shamelessly taking advtange of a freeze in the Hirak movement to punish opposition figures. Journalist Khaled Dradeni and others were also arrested. Tabbou was sentenced...
North Africa’s incomprehensible night curfews
Opinion by Arezki Daoud: Persistent, logical and even unpopular policies must be implemented to fight the coronavirus. And so North African countries adopted night curfews to limit the spread of Covid-19. At first, the decision sounded OK. But then again what is the...
Education: Studying from home amid Covid-19
Tripoli, March 24, 2020 - By Rim Tahar - Either on television as in Libya or on tablets in the IT-savvy Gulf monarchies, in the time of novel coronavirus millions of schoolchildren around the Arab world are now learning lessons at home. Governments across the region...
Algeria: The empty streets of Algiers
Algiers, March 20, 2020 - For the first time in over a year, the streets of the Algerian capital were quiet and almost empty on Friday, the day of weekly anti-government rallies. The coronavirus threat put paid to what would have been the 57th straight Friday of...
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