Algiers (AFP)

Freedom of the press and expression is deteriorating in Algeria, against the backdrop of the suspension of the anti-regime popular movement ("Hirak") and health crisis, with journalists in detention and online media censorship, worried defenders human rights.

"It is not normal for journalists to be in prison. There has been a Revolution (note: the" Hirak) "for the rule of law and freedoms, including freedom of expression, but the political system pursues journalists who have an editorial line that displeases ", deplores the lawyer Mustapha Bouchachi.

On World Press Freedom Day on Sunday, several human rights NGOs urged the Algerian authorities to end the legal proceedings and to release the imprisoned journalists, including Khaled Drareni, who became his defending body symbol of the fight for press freedom

"At a time when all eyes, at the national and international levels, are scrutinizing the management of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Algerian authorities devote time to speeding up the prosecutions and trials against activists, journalists and supporters of the movement Hirak, "Heba Morayef, director of Amnesty International for the Middle East and North Africa, said on Thursday in a statement.

Defenders of freedom of expression also denounce "targeted harassment of the independent media", some of which are accused by the authorities of being financed by "foreign organizations".

Three Algerian online media, active in the coverage of "Hirak", were the target of censorship: two sites of the Interface Media group, Maghreb Emergent and the web radio Radio M, and the general information site Interlignes.

"Journalists and activists for democracy are locked up for such diverse and varied reasons when in reality it is just the expression of peaceful opinions that deserves their punishment", underlines the journalist Akram Belkaïd, in Thursday his chronicle in Le Quotidien d'Oran, an independent French-language newspaper.

"These liberticide initiatives fall under the same objective which is to silence the Algerians and to tell them that the fifty-six weeks of the Hirak were only a parenthesis," he said.

A plural and peaceful uprising, the "Hirak", which erupted on February 22, 2019, shook Algerian power until the suspension of its weekly demonstrations due to the pandemic of new coronavirus (453 dead and 4,154 cases officially declared).

- 146th out of 180 -

The authorities deny any obstacle, assuring, on the contrary, through the Minister of Communication, Ammar Belhimer, an ex-journalist, that the Algerian state "powerfully" supports press freedom.

"There are 8,000 journalists and for three or four of them who are not part of the national press but of the foreign press, financed by foreigners, there has been a big stir about attacks on freedom of the press, "said President Abdelmadjid Tebboune during a meeting with national media broadcast on Friday evening on radio and television.

"We are talking about national sovereignty. They are bringing in foreign funding to break up institutions. Which developed and democratic countries accept this (…) why should we accept it," insisted the head of state before journalists from the private and public press.

Algeria is 146th (out of 180) in the 2020 press freedom ranking by RSF. It tumbled 27 places compared to 2015 (119th).

For Me Bouchachi, a former president of the Algerian League for Human Rights (LADH), there is "no real desire to move towards change, openness and the rule of law".

"The government in power does not want to reconcile the Algerians and go to another Algeria. On the contrary, it is the status quo," he told AFP.

© 2020 AFP