Algerian authorities arrest journalist over Bouraoui case
The Algerian authorities have arrested another journalist, this time in connection with the case of an activist who slipped out of Algeria into Tunisia and then finally onto Paris.
Mustapha Bendjama was arrested at the premises of his newspaper Le Provincial, based in Annaba (north-east), according to the Interlignes news site.
It’s the second arrest of a journalist there since Ihsane El-Kadi was arrested on December 27th for merely criticizing the regime.
Interlignes claims to have been able to speak with colleagues of the journalist to whom he told, before his arrest, that he had been contacted by “the general information of the police” asking him “information on the exit of Amira Bouraoui from the national territory”.
This Franco-Algerian activist, who was banned from leaving Algerian territory, was able to board a flight to France on the evening of February 6th from Tunisia, where she had entered a few days earlier. released and then again detained by the Tunisian police, Ms. Bouraoui benefited from consular protection before taking a plane to France where she arrived on Monday evening.
Algiers recalled its ambassador to Paris on Wednesday to protest against what the Algerian authorities described as the “illegal exfiltration” of Ms. Bouraoui.
According to Interlignes citing his colleagues, Mustapha Bendjama assured the police of general information “to have nothing to do with this case which does not concern him”. The journalists’ defense organization RSF International protested against his arrest on Twitter, denouncing “repeated methods of repression against journalists” and “called for his immediate release”.
Since December 29, Ihsane El Kadi, director of the Algerian station Radio M and the site Maghreb Emergent, has been in pre-trial detention as part of an investigation for illegal fundraising and alleged attack on state security.
RSF, Amnesty International and media bosses have called for his release and for the reopening of Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, whose broadcasting has been banned on Algerian territory.
