Two days before the opening of the presidential campaign scheduled for December 12, the Algerians again massively gathered in the streets, Friday, November 15, to oppose the poll. An election intended, according to them, to regenerate a "system" which they want to get rid of.
Appeared February 22 after the departure of Abdelaziz Bouteflika, in power for 20 years, the protest movement, the "Hirak", refuses to run out of steam. The mobilization was still massive for this 39th consecutive Friday of demonstrations, despite the hundreds of incarcerations of demonstrators, activists and journalists since June after the cancellation, for lack of candidates, of a first presidential election on July 4th.
Algerian journalists were in the front line. These had planned to cover "collectively" the weekly demonstration against the regime. A symbolic act to denounce the "intimidation" and "threats" of the authorities against them, according to one of the spokespersons of a collective of media professionals.
"Journalism is not a crime"
More than 300 journalists from the print, audio-visual and private electronic media, as well as public broadcasting, have signed a text in which they "sound the alarm". They denounce the "systematic harassment of the media" in Algeria.
"We will all have a white armband, to show our quality as free and independent journalists, and we will cover this event despite the injunctions of power," said Khaled Drareni, a spokesman for the group that had planned to regroup just before the departure of the procession.
Earlier this week, the same group had denounced, in a text published on a Facebook page entitled "To save the Algerian press", the "pressures and constraints (...) that prevent journalists from fulfilling their professional duty and 'ensure the public service' of information.
"We demand the power to cease censorship of public and private media and to undermine media freedoms in order to guarantee the citizen's right to objective and neutral information," said the more than 300 signatories. Among them are about fifty national radio and television journalists, whose tone is very controlled.
"Journalism is not a crime," they point out. "Algeria is going through a historical sequence that the media and journalists must accompany with greater professionalism and freedom is one of the fundamental conditions".
For several months, at least three journalists have been remanded in connection with publications on social networks. Others have been placed under judicial control.
A banner for "opinion prisoners"
This wave of repression of demonstrations also led on Tuesday to the conviction of 28 people to six months in prison by a court in Algiers. Arrested in possession of an Amazigh (Berber) flag, they were found guilty of "undermining the integrity of the national territory". The next day, five other people, tried for the same facts, were acquitted by another court in the capital.
Inside the procession, on Friday, a long banner with the names and photos of these "opinion prisoners" stretched about 40 meters.
A large number of protesters also marched in Oran and Constantine, Algeria's other two main cities, according to local journalists. Markets have also mobilized heavily in several other localities, according to online news sites and social networks.
Demonstrations that dispersed without incident in the late afternoon.
With AFP