Ex-activist of the Barakat movement ("Enough!"), She made herself known in 2014 by playing the opposition to a fourth term of President Bouteflika. Amira Bouraoui was sentenced to one year in prison on Sunday, June 21, for "offense to Islam", "offense" to the President of the Republic Abdelmadjid Tebboune and "incitement to violate containment", by "directly exposing life others or their physical integrity at risk "during the health crisis.

The opponent was also accused of "publication (on social networks) which could undermine national unity" and "information or news, false or slanderous, likely to undermine security or public order" .

Call

"This conviction is unjustified, the file is empty. We are going to appeal," Me Mustapha Bouchachi, his lawyer, told AFP. The prosecution had requested 18 months in prison against this activist of "Hirak", the protest movement which pushed Abdelaziz Bouteflika to resign in April 2019.

"This kind of legal proceedings that has been going on for months cannot appease politically speaking minds. It is not the best way to open up to society, to militants and to the peaceful revolution," said Bouchachi.

Amira Bouraoui, a 44-year-old gynecologist, mother of two children aged 12 and 16, was immediately imprisoned. She had been arrested at home Wednesday evening and placed in police custody.

Hirak activists' sentences are increasing

Justice has multiplied in recent days legal proceedings and convictions of activists of "Hirak", political opponents, journalists and bloggers, the power seeking to stem the return of the protest at the time when the deconfinement begins.

Most of the prosecutions are based on a new penal code, adopted hastily on April 22 in the midst of a health crisis due to the Covid-19.

This wave of repression has made some critics of power say that the human rights situation in Algeria is worse today than in Bouteflika's time, particularly with regard to press freedom.    

Since June 7, the country has been easing the restrictions imposed to stem the spread of the new coronavirus, although any form of assembly has been strictly prohibited since mid-March.

This did not prevent, last Friday, hundreds of Algerians from resuming protests in the provinces, especially in Kabylia (northwest), according to local sources.

Trials of relatives of Bouteflika

Nearly 500 people were arrested across the country during these banned demonstrations, before the majority of them were released, according to Saïd Salhi, vice-president of the Algerian League for Human Rights (LADDH) .

Among the hundred demonstrators placed in police custody after their arrest on Friday, nearly twenty were placed Sunday under arrest warrant. The rest were either sentenced to prison terms or suspended, or fined, or released pending trial.

Before the wave of arrests on Friday, the National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees (CNLD) had identified around sixty prisoners linked to the "Hirak" in detention.

Born in February 2019 of a huge fed-up, the "Hirak" demands a change of the "system" in place since independence in 1962. In vain, until now, even if it obtained the departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika after twenty years in power.

In addition, the vast investigations into corruption and patronage launched after the fall of Abdelaziz Bouteflika have led to a series of trials.

Sunday, the businessman Ali Haddad, former omnipotent boss of the bosses linked to the ex-president, returned to justice in Algiers during a new trial for corruption. Two former prime ministers of President Bouteflika - Ahmed Ouyahia and Abdelmalek Sellal - are accused in this trial, which has been postponed to June 23.

With AFP

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