What the Algerian media's boycott of Tebboune's visit to China reveals
While his visit to Moscow a month earlier was widely covered by the Algerian media, his visit to China was magnificently ignored by the Algerian press as a whole. On the first day of the visit, as can be seen from the screenshots of the electronic portals of the main newspapers and the (government) press agency, not a word was said about President Tebboune's arrival in China or his activities.
Even public television, with all its channels, only devoted a few minutes to Tebboune's trip to China, showing images of his arrival at Beijing airport.
What a strange attitude on the part of a press totally subservient to the regime in power. What could be behind this boycott that everyone seems to be ignoring? It all began on 9 July with a communiqué from the Communications Directorate of the Presidency of the Republic. The communiqué "reiterates the rules governing the publication of information relating to presidential activities". Namely, "the publication and dissemination of information purporting to refer to official activities must come exclusively from the General Directorate of Communication of the Presidency of the Republic". The communiqué concludes in a threatening tone: "The Directorate General of Communication asks once again that the laws of the Republic and the ethics of the profession be strictly respected, and warns that any recourse to other sources in relation to presidential activity is propaganda and infoxication, which will engage the responsibility of the author, who will be held accountable". This was enough to irritate Algerian journalists, already subjected to censorship, pressures of all kinds and humiliations, to cause deep discontent to sweep through the editorial offices. This discontent was deliberately encouraged by the services of the Directorate-General for Internal Security, through its liaison officers in the editorial offices.
The author of this communiqué is none other than Kamel Sid Saïd, son of the former Minister of Posts and Telecommunications in Mouloud Hamrouche's government in 1989. A man who has never practised journalism other than through a few columns published in a newspaper whose readership does not exceed the threshold of its editorial office and which is notable for its extraordinary rate of unsold copies despite its very low circulation.
However, Kamel Sid Saïd relies on his relations with the intelligence services, for whom he acts both as an informer and an agent to do dirty work in the most important institutions. For example, he was introduced by the intelligence services into CEVITAL, the holding company of the wealthy Issad Rebrab, as head of communications. His job was much more to keep an eye on the head of CEVITAL than to manage its communications. It was these same departments that placed him in the office of the President of the Republic the day after Tebboune's inauguration. He was appointed by presidential decree on 26 December 2019, along with three other advisers, as communications adviser. However, in order to have more weight within the Presidency of the Republic, he was promoted from adviser to director general.
As director general of communication, he even gave orders to the presidential spokesman, a certain Samir Aggoune, "a ghost spokesman who only appeared to read out communiqués when governments were reshuffled", as many observers have noted. Kamel Sid Saïd has created a vacuum around himself and his Communication Department is an empty shell. He barely manages the Presidency of the Republic's electronic portal, which only publishes in Arabic, and is content with laconic communiqués on the President's limited activities and on the activities of the Director General of Communication, who has been promoted to the same level as the President.
The fact that this Director of Communication has taken the liberty of putting himself on the same level as the President of the Republic by sharing the President's website with him means that he has solid sponsors on whom he can rely. He is his right-hand man. But how? You cannot boycott media coverage of an important visit by the head of state if you do not have solid support in the most influential structures of the state.
Looking at the headlines the day after Tebboune's first day in China, it is hard to believe one's eyes. Following in the footsteps of APS, the official press agency, El-Watan, the country's leading French-language daily, did not publish a single report on the president's activities. Other dailies made do with a streamer or an ear on the front page, preferring to give the main headlines to an insignificant statement by the 93-year-old president of the Council of the Nation, Salah Goudjil, or to the results of the baccalaureate.
In China, the boycott was whispered in Tebboune's ear by some of his close associates, exasperated by Kamel Sid Saïd's behaviour. But, powerless in the face of the sponsors of his Directorate General of Communication, he turned a deaf ear. He contented himself with seeing a few photos of his visit to China on the Presidency's website, accompanied by a one-and-a-half line caption and no video. President Tebboune knows where the blow is coming from and lacks the courage to confront those who really hold the reins of power.