ALGIERS - Algeria released a leading journalist from prison on Wednesday at the end of his two-year sentence for violating a law governing the transfer of money abroad, witnesses said. Mohamed Benchicou, editor of independent newspaper Le Matin and a critic of the authorities, was sentenced on June 14, 2004 for breaking a foreign exchange and money transfer law after police found bank vouchers in his luggage at Algiers airport.
| "Pack your gear and get out!" |
“He left prison this morning. He is free,” said a journalist who worked at Le Matin, which has gone out of business for financial reasons.
| So there's more than one way to stifle a journalist ... |
International human rights groups have accused Algeria of using legal action to silence journalists who annoy its leaders. The government rejects accusations it targets the media, saying cases brought by the authorities had nothing to do with politics or press freedom.
"What were they about then?
"It's an Arab thing. Complex. You wouldn't understand." |
Benchicou was the first journalist to be sentenced under the money transfer law.
Last month, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika pardoned journalists sentenced to prison for defamation and insulting officials in the first such step since he took office seven years ago. The move, to mark World Press Freedom Day, covered reporters convicted of “gross insult to state officials, offending the president of the republic, injuring state institutions, defamation and insult”. None of those journalists had actually been sent to prison, despite their sentences.
| That must make sense somewhere ... |
Algerian journalists supposedly enjoy more freedom than those in many other Arabic-speaking countries.
| Talk about setting a low bar ... |
About 119 titles, including 43 dailies, have sprung up since the sector was liberalised in the early 1990s. |