Algeria’s trend of targeting journalists is worrying. France-based blogger Amir Boukers, an Algerian who writes the Facebook blog under the hashtag name of AmarDZ, came under vicious attack from Anis Rahmani’s Arab-language Ennahar channel. Those suspected of helping Boukers — by providing him with insight and information on corruption within the Algerian elite — have been arrested and imprisoned without trial.
There is a growing risk that the regime is increasing its efforts to silence or eliminate journalists who are critical and outspoken. This week, for example, a UK-based suspected former DRS — the former Algerian intelligence services — agent went online to threaten Boukers with a similar kind of treatment that was received by the Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi before his death.
Algeria already has a grim record of eliminating journalists.
Mohamed Tamalt was gruesomely murdered by his captors in December 2016 while serving a two-year sentence for ‘insulting the President’.
The second journalist likely to die in an Algerian prison in the last two years is Saïd Chitour who has now been languishing in prison without trial for over 16 months. This week, EuroMed Rights described his deteriorating state of health as ‘critical’. In particular he is suffering from a tumour at the base of his skull and from severe diabetes and his family has described him as ‘unrecognisable’.
With some two million Facebook followers — almost all believed to be young Algerians — AmarDZ has more potential influence over the country’s youth than any government channel. The regime therefore has good reason to be concerned.
AmarDZ has also posed a threat to the army. In early 2017, there was unrest in the lower ranks of the army which could have posed a serious threat to the regime if it found sympathy within the upper ranks. Some of this information about the ill-treatment and sexual abuse of the army’s lower ranks was transmitted by AmarDZ, who has a big following amongst the country’s national servicemen. With the current levels of anxiety within the army, Chief of Staff Gaïd Salah and others therefore have good reason to silence AmarDZ.
This analysis was taken from our weekly Algeria country report, Algeria Politics & Security. Contact us here to receive a free sample.
