" I'm free. It is with these words that the journalist Moncef Aït Kaci, ex-correspondent of France 24, confirmed to have been released on Twitter. After a day in detention, the Algerian authorities announced that he and cameraman Ramdane Rahmouni had been able to get on with their lives. The two Algerian journalists were arrested Tuesday and then placed in detention by the prosecutor of a court in Algiers. The facts with which they are accused have not been officially specified.
In a tweet, the NGO Reporters sans Frontières said it was “relieved by the release of Moncef Aït Kaci and Ramdane Rahmouni but concerned by the relentless repression of the authorities on independent journalists. "We urge the authorities to put an end to the targeted harassment of independent media in Algeria where freedom of information is dying," she added.
Continued since November 2019
According to RSF, the two journalists had been prosecuted since November 2019. They are accused of “harming the national interest (…), of foreign funding and of collaboration without accreditation with a television channel. An Algerian photographer, Youcef Hassani, placed under arrest warrant in connection with the same case, was also released on Wednesday, according to Algerian media. In Algeria, it is compulsory to be accredited with the authorities to work as a foreign media correspondent.
Before his arrest, Mr. Aït Kaci had written in a letter published on the online information site Casbah Tribune: “on July 1, 2020, my employers (France 24) decided to end their collaboration with me as correspondent, because I was no longer working in the field because, precisely, I respected the instructions ”of the authorities.
No accreditation for 2020 had been issued until Tuesday. That same day, an “accreditation ceremony” took place in Algiers in the presence of the Minister of Communication, Ammar Belhimer, public media reported, referring to “around fifty representatives of foreign media. But some of these correspondents, including journalists from AFP, are still waiting for their accreditation.
Reached by RSF, Mr. Omar Baahmed, lawyer for Mr. Aït Kaci, said the trial against his client and Ramdane Rahmouni was political. Their arrest sparked protests on social media.
"Unjustly arrested"
In an internal memo obtained by AFP before their release, the management of France Médias Monde, a group that oversees RFI and France 24, had said to provide "all (his) support" to colleagues "unjustly arrested. Ramdane Rahmouni had contributed to the interview with Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on July 4, according to France 24. An interview devoted to the turbulent Franco-Algerian relations and the memorial issue.
Algeria and France, former colonial power, have started a rapprochement on "the memory of colonization and the Algerian war", with a view according to Paris to promote "reconciliation" between the two peoples. The arrest of the journalists is part of a context of "increased repression of press freedom in Algeria", according to human rights defenders. It occurred "after those of Khaled Drareni, our correspondent and that of TV5", imprisoned since the end of March, recalled RSF.
Having become the symbol of the fight for press freedom in Algeria, Khaled Drareni, director of the Casbah Tribune site, must be tried on Monday. He is accused of "inciting an unarmed assembly and attacking the integrity of the national territory" after covering in Algiers a demonstration of the popular anti-regime movement suspended because of the Covid-19 epidemic.
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