Algiers (AFP)
A journalist for the French-speaking Algerian daily Liberté was arrested and his home searched, the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights (LADDH) and one of his colleagues said on Monday.
"Journalist Mohamed Mouloudj, journalist for the daily Liberté, was arrested on Sunday with a search of the home (...) He is still in custody in Algiers," LADDH said on its Facebook page.
No comment could be obtained from the newspaper, where Mr. Mouloudj has worked for ten years, but one of his colleagues confirmed his arrest.
"He has already had problems with the security services which deprived him of his passport for many months. He was also arrested several times before being released", told AFP this colleague, Ali Boukhlaf. .
Another Algerian journalist, Hassan Bouras, arrested on September 6, was formally placed in pre-trial detention on Sunday, in particular for "apologizing for terrorism", according to his lawyers.
Algeria is in 146th place (out of 180) in the 2021 global press freedom ranking established by the NGO Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
In addition, the gendarmerie announced in the early evening the arrest of 16 suspected members of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), a separatist group considered terrorist by the authorities, as part of the investigations into the recent fires. of forest in Kabylia and the lynching to death of a man, Djamel Bensmail, wrongly suspected of arson in this northeastern region.
Among those arrested is a journalist whose identity has not been disclosed.
According to the gendarmerie, quoted by the official APS agency, the investigation established that eleven of them were "involved" in the assassination of Djamel Bensmail.
So far, some 83 suspects have been imprisoned for the lynching of this man, who had volunteered in the village of Larbaâ Nath Iraten, near Tizi Ouzou to put out the fires that have killed at least 60 people in a week .
© 2021 AFP