Algeria: Prison for a journalist and a researcher, and kidnapping of a former gendarme
On Sunday 20 August, Algeria was due to commemorate the anniversary of the 1956 Soummam Congress and the 1955 North Constantinois offensive. Although there were no official events organised by the authorities, as is tradition, dozens of citizens travelled to Ifri Ouzellaguene (in the wilaya of Bejaïa), where the first FLN congress was held, to celebrate this historic date. Faced with the large influx of pilgrims who had come to recall one of the most important decisions taken at this meeting, namely "the primacy of politics over the military", the authorities quickly sealed off the village and forced many of them to turn back. The most recalcitrant, around twenty of them, were arrested and taken to the nearest gendarmerie station.
Paradoxical as it may seem, the celebration of a key date in the history of the war of liberation is banned. And yet, the Algerian regime is using the armed revolution of November 1954 as an ineradicable bargaining chip to demonstrate its supposed attachment to the values so often overused in empty rhetoric and in total contradiction with today's reality. It is precisely this contradiction between the decisions taken at the Soummam Congress and the nature of the current regime that is behind the absence of any official event to celebrate the anniversary of this historic event. Algerians are well aware of this, as many of them travelled to Ifri Ouzellaguene to chant the slogans of the hirak, the popular uprising of February 2019 that swept away Bouteflika's regime but was confiscated by the military clan of the late Gaïd Salah.
Kidnapping of former gendarme Adel Abdelmalek
The day before, on Saturday 19 August, when the investigating judge at the Tébessa court had just released former gendarme Adel Abdelmalek, aged 36, arrested three days earlier with his brothers, a team from the Directorate General of Internal Security travelled from Algiers late at night to kidnap him and take him to the sinister "Antar" barracks, a notorious torture centre known to all Algerians. The gendarme had been arrested at dawn on 13 August with his two other brothers by members of the gendarmerie in the town of Tébessa, in the east of the country. They were suspected of being in contact with their brother Anouar Malek, an opposition journalist exiled in France. After being questioned and their smartphones and computers checked, the two older brothers were released and Adel, their younger brother, was brought before the examining magistrate on Thursday 17 August. The investigating judge found that the case file contained no evidence of any charges that could be brought against him, so he was released and placed under judicial supervision. On leaving the court, he was picked up by gendarmes who took him to the brigade, telling his family that he would be released in a few minutes. They were told that he would be released in a few minutes, "just long enough to sign some documents". A few hours later, his family, who had gone to enquire about their son's situation, were told that he would be transferred the following day to the Constantine military court for another case. On Sunday, there was no news of Adel. A lawyer made enquiries at the Constantine military court and, to his great surprise, was told that there was no case concerning Adel Abdelmalek at that court.
At around midday, sources close to the Antar barracks told us that this former gendarme, whose only crime was to set up a Facebook page to demand justice after being arbitrarily struck off from the national gendarmerie because he was related to an exiled opponent, was in the hands of the torturers at this sinister centre run by General Abdelkader Haddad alias Nacer El-Djen. At the time of writing, his family has had no further news of him.
Prison sentence requested for journalist and researcher
The crackdown on Algerians spares no one. Not even scientific researchers. Raouf Farrah, 36, an Algerian-Canadian researcher and analyst with the Global Initiative against Transnational Organised Crime (GI-TOC), was arrested on 14 February at his parents' home in Annaba, in eastern Algeria. He has been charged with an absurd offence that could cost him 3 years behind bars. At least, that's what the Constantine court prosecutor requested on Tuesday 22 August. He is being prosecuted for "publishing information and documents, the content of which is classified as partially or completely secret, on an electronic network or other technological media", according to the Facebook page of the Comité Nationale pour la Libération des Détenus (CNLD).
He is also charged with "receiving funds from foreign or domestic institutions with the intention of committing acts that could undermine public order", according to his lawyer Kouceila Zerguine.
The same charge has been brought against his father Sebti Farrah, aged 67, who spent 2 months in pre-trial detention before being provisionally released on health grounds. A 3-year prison sentence has also been requested against him.
Obviously, the father and son Farrahs have not committed any offence and all that can be held against them is their political activism against the current government.
The same is true of the journalist Mustapha Bendjemaa, 32, editor-in-chief of the privately-owned newspaper Le Provincial, based in Annaba, who was arrested on 8 February and has been held in pre-trial detention for over 6 months in connection with the case of the Franco-Algerian activist Amira Bouraoui, who fled across the Algerian-Tunisian border to join her son in France.
Moncef Bendjemaa, a leading figure in the hirak in Annaba, has been in and out of prison for his writings and political activism. He is also facing 3 years' imprisonment (requested by the Constantine court prosecutor) for "helping Amira Bouraoui to leave Algerian territory while she was subject to a National Exit Prohibition (ISTN)".
The verdict in the case of Farrah father and son and Moncef Bendjemaa is expected on 29 August.
