7 Final Country Report

04.10.2022

INTSTDS 4850

Censorship in Algeria: Journalism and Media

By: Lina Belouadah

This story is about the censorship of journalists in Algeria. An Algerian journalist was interviewed for this article, written in 2019, by Danya Hajjaji. The author is Danya Hajjaji, a fellow for Middle East Research, and writes this article for the purpose of examining censorship in technology and media in Algeria overall (Hajjaji, 2019). Hajjaji is overseen by the Patti Birch foundation and is conducting research for their Africa program which seeks to report press violations across the whole continent (Hajjaji, 2019). Hajjaji is a Libyan-born journalist with experience writing in English, French, and Arabic( Hajjaji, 2019). The Algerian interviewee Lynda Abbou is based in Algeria and writes for Algeria through independent news sites, such as Maghreb Émergent, and hosts TV programs in the Arabic language to be broadcasted to the Algerian people. Outside of TV and news magazines, Abbou reports news on independently owned radio outlets as well.

The purpose for this interview of Abbou arises as the concern of censorship within Algerian media has been increasing, especially regarding the governmental regime. Beginning February of 2019, protests in the streets of Algeria have been rampant against the operation of the fifth reelection of the Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Bouteflika had a vexed relationship with the public and he grew more and more unpopular as his term continued. He was sworn into office for the first time in 1999 and has been the country’s leader for 20 years, and before that, was a prominent figure in the country’s politics for over 40 years, totaling 60 years of political involvement (Mezahi, 2021). At first, the Algerian people took pride in their leader as he had a background of academic excellence since his youth (Mezahi, 2021). During his freshman year of high school, his performance in school was so exemplary, a member of the Royal Palace of Morocco called his parents to congratulate them on his achievements (Mezahi, 2021). He began his political journey when he was 19 through the Algerian National Liberation Army and climbed his way to the top of the political chain as his experience and connections grew. The skepticism about Bouteflika began in the 80s when he was accused of embezzling funds. The cynicism only grew when he announced he was running for Presidential chair in 1999 and, mysteriously, all his running mates withdrew from the race before the election. A few months into his Presidency, he was pardoning “extremists and members of armed militias” (Mezahi, 2021). In 2008, he changed the constitution to allow Presidents to lead for more than two terms and this is the reason why he is now considered the longest sitting president in Algerian history. He began to have health concerns around 2013 when he suffered a stroke and stayed out of the public eye from then on. The public questioned if he was still fit to lead and fuel was added to the fire when it was announced he would make an attempt to run another term. At the writing of Hajjaji’s article, Bouteflika’s campaign was contingent but still not officially announced. Throughout Bouteflika’s presidency, criticism from the public was already censored but there was an uptick in what the government and police force were doing to keep people from being heard. Protests ignited throughout the country yet media coverage was slim to none. Hajjaji interviews Lynda Abbou to talk about this censorship in media from the journalist’s perspective.

In her interview, Lynda Abbou says she covered every single protest yet she would return home to open social media to find photos or information and would not be able to find anything. Not long after, she found herself and other journalists being the target of backlash and torment. “Where were you on February 22nd?” This is an expression she heard a lot from everyone including the police to the people on the street as soon as she introduced herself as a journalist. February 22, a Friday, was the date of the initial mass demonstration called Hirak’s beginning (Anonymous, 2021). The first Hirak protest on this date was the mark of a peaceful anti-government outcry by Algerians, which was set to take place every Friday afternoon after prayer. Word spread about the event at the Friday prayers through word of mouth and through direct phone calls. To put into perspective how many people attend Friday prayer, Algeria changed their weekend system to be Friday and Saturday after their independence from the French in the 60s, instead of the traditional Saturday and Sunday the rest of the world is used to, to accommodate Friday prayer and the country is home to over 15,000 mosques (Anonymous, 2006). Once a routine of protests came right after the prayer had been established within the city of Algiers, more people across the country followed suit and joined the cause. While the main objective was to object to the President’s reelection, the premise of the protests magnified as time went on to stand up to other injustices facilitated by the government. Some of these injustices include infringements to freedom of speech and assembly clauses, which are protected within the country’s constitution, from the government, and a divergence from the intended democratic democracy to a more authoritarian government where Algerian rights would be suppressed overall (Goldstein, 2021).

Abbou expresses frustration with people who undermine her role in the media as a journalist because she feels like people are not seeing the whole picture. Although all the journalists were present at the protests and were even live-streaming the events, their content would be taken down by the government every single time or the government would even organize internet outages around the time of the demonstrations that would extend to a couple of days after so people couldn’t upload anything related to the event. Both public-owned and, surprisingly, private-owned media companies facilitated the censorship nationwide due to government connections within both types of institutions and silenced thousands of people being in attendance including journalists. In the interview, Abbou references the resignation of renowned radio and media host, Meriem Abdou, as the turning point for reporters who had had enough of the public torment. Abdou announced publicly she was quitting her show L’Histoire en March and “as a journalist, [she] does not accept this and [she] no longer wishes to be part of the management of this channel [Channel 3] (Afrique, 2019). This ignited protest from other journalists, separate from Hirak, to reprehend media companies for silencing reporters from simply doing their job. Over 150 journalists organized a demonstration in the downtown area and were met by riot police (Chikhi and Ahmed, 2019). From there, things got messy. Many journalists got arrested but the worst of them were beaten to unconsciousness. Abbou, who attended the protest to report on it, notes that despite things being hectic, she felt solidarity being with fellow journalists and protesting for the same cause.

On top of the blatant censorship of the media reporters try to get out, they also experience censorship in simply trying to get media to report on in the first place. The channels of access to get information on government figures or actions are far and few. The government chooses what press outlets can report and what specifically they can report. Receiving reliable information that would oppose the government would require a connection to someone inside the government, which not many journalists have, and the willingness to report, which not many insiders would ever do in fear of legal repercussions (Hajjaji, 2019). Lynda Abbou concludes her interview by expressing desire in seeing the country turn to having free institutions that can report on anything and be protected by freedom of speech as well as seeing the country overall become the free, democratic political system it was once supposed to be.

To shed light on what has been accomplished through the demonstrations, Hirak has made some changes in the government structure that could apply to a shift in censorship in the near future. Besides having the last President overthrown, Hirak exposed the corruption that was running deep within the government body all along. The millions of Algerians protesting in the streets pressured the government enough to prosecute other corrupt leaders within the system, which shockingly included dozens of figures from prime ministers, military generals, to even the brother of the former President who was accused of exploiting his brother’s sickness to make illegal decisions on his behalf (Marwane, 2021). Two prime ministers were prosecuted in late 2019 for facilitating and accepting bribes and because the government wanted to show they were serious about taking accountability that the protests called for them to do, their trial was actually televised on national TV for the public to watch (Marwane, 2021). This came as a shock to everyone knowing how repressive the administration was about governmental matters (Anonymous, 2019). In March of 2021, the current President of Algeria, Tebboune, promised changes in the government structure and to pardon some of the protesters who have been arrested for voicing their views on the government (Marwane, 2021). Despite these promises for progression, as late as January of 2022, protesters and anti-government expressionists are still being arrested daily for their participation in the protests and criticisms of President Tebboune (Anonymous, 2022). The current administration is even making efforts to cease the protests altogether by using retaliation tactics against event organizers. Fethi Ghares, the leader of the Democratic and Social Movement, was arrested at the protest for publicly voicing his opposition to the government and was sentenced to serve two years in prison and pay a fine of about $1,420 (Anonymous, 2022). More tactics used by the government include probation periods, fines of thousands of dollars, seizure and search of private property, and unlawful detainment and prosecution of anyone involved (Anonymous, 2022). The government televising a trial publicly that shows corruption within their own system is a bold move and a step in the right direction in the eyes of Algerian citizens, but to see censorship in Algeria drastically change to be less rigid will require time and resilience from journalists and the Algerian people.

While Algeria experiences a lot of suppression in the media, there are also some institutions that are receptive to opposing views that give voices to the opponents of the government. As noted in Lynda Abbou’s interview, many privately owned publishing companies censor just as much as state media but she finds that French-speaking private media outlets are more forgiving to criticism of the Algerian government. Due to colonization and the presence of indigenous populations in Algeria, the majority of the public can speak and understand Arabic, Berber, and French (Languages, 2021). This allows journalists more freedom to publish media content in a range of languages for people to engage with and some languages experience more restrictions and censorship than others. State media with ties to the Algerian government are usually published in Arabic but the government is less invasive with media published in French. The freedom of expression is a smaller number for privately owned Arabic-speaking printing presses (Hajjaji, 2019).The reason for this is that even Arabic-owned private companies do not have the luxury of having their own printing presses, so they create the content but have to use state-owned printers which are heavily monitored (Hajjaji, 2019). The most reliable form of media to criticize the government would come from privately owned French-speaking electronic media outlets because although the Algerian government has strict regulation of what is posted online, they still do not have a solid censorship method for content posted in languages outside of Arabic (Hajjaji, 2019).

Danya Hajjaji writes this article to highlight the extreme censorship across Algeria enforced under the current government regime. We look at the President’s role in the country’s current state of hypercontrolled media and the foundations of the Hirak protests were explored in depth. Her interview with Lynda Abbou calls attention to the struggles and obstacles that reporters face just to do their job and calls to action for freedom of speech and expression for media reporters across the country.

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