Résolution du Parlement Européen     "Libérez les journalistes!"     L'Union Européenne presse Alger     Le Parlement Européen condamne     Le Parlement Européen réclame la libération     Rsf se voit systématiquement refuser le visa     Le Parlement européen saisit les autorités algériennes     Message de Mohamed Benchicou     Le délit de dire     Quand une victime devient coupable     Se taire ou disparaître     Rassemblement à la Maison de la Presse     Parce qu'ils ont l'Algérie au coeur     L'avocat de Benchicou répond à Belkhadem     La chronique d'Élisabeth Dath     Vaste mouvement de solidarité en France     Mobilisation pour Mohamed Benchicou     Des sit-in de la Fij devants des ambassades algériennes     Relaxer les journalistes algériens     Appel de l'Humanité     La Fij dénonce     Indignation     Malade, Benchicou restera en Prison     Benchicou est maintenu en prison     Le mur du silence se lézarde     La presse "uniformément correcte"     Journalists behind bars?     Des journalistes derrière les barreaux?     Harcèlement à l'égard de la presse indépendante     Liberté pour les journalistes     Regain de mobilisation     Déclaration     Liberté de la presse     Algérie, morne presse     Harcèlement systématique     Journalistes de tous pays, unissez-vous!     "Benchicou doit être libéré"     Mise au point de Mme Benchicou     Le pluralisme de façade     Les journalistes français solidaires     Escalada de represión     Rsf demande un terme au cauchemar judiciaire     "Benchicou ne mérite pas l'emprisonnement"     Le Matin, Benchicou et Hugo Chavez     "Benchicou paye pour ses écrits"     La normalisation de la société     La presse étroitement surveillée     Fait inédit     La justice algérienne confirme la peine de prison     "On est tous des Benchicou!"     Stifling press freedom     Fine annunciata de un giornale troppo scomodo     Confirmation en appel de la peine de 2 ans de prison     Rsf dénonce une justice inique     Le Matin est suspendu     Déclaration du Comité pour la libération des journalistes     Pitizioni per I giornalisti incarcerati     Le président Bouteflika ferme le jeu     Les sénateurs américains interpellés     Des témoins pour Benchicou     La Fidh s'inquiète des atteintes répétées à la liberté de la presse     Lettre ouverte au président Bouteflika     La tromperie nationale     "La situation de la liberté de la presse, dans ces pays, est lamentable"     Bradage du siège du journal Le Matin     For international plan of action     Une délégation des médias demande un plan international d'action     Concern over "media crisis" in Algeria     "Il y a danger sur les libertés"     Nouvelle agression contre la presse indépendante en Algérie     Algerian press decries journalist's jailing     Suite aux emprisonnements et aux menaces contre la presse     Mme Benchicou saisit le Parlement européen     Paris et la Commission interpellés     "Je n'ai commis aucune infraction"     Pour la libération immédiate de Hafnaoui et Benchicou     Dois anos de prisao para jornalista argelino     Pétition pour la libération de Mohamed Benchicou     Pétition:"Liberez Benchicou!"     Algérie, un pays qui résiste     Cpj calls on authorities to cease campaign of judicial harassment     Omar Belhouchet:"Au suivant!"     Benchicou sentenced to two years in prison     Mohamed Benchicou condamné à 2 ans de prison     Algérie, rapport 2004     "Bouteflika, une imposture algérienne"     In der loyalitätsfalle     "Le Matin ne se laissera pas faire"     Le communiqué du Matin     Bouteflika no puede prohibir un libro     Le livre de Mohamed Benchicou     Les éditeurs de journaux se réunissent     Sas condenado a 6 meses de prisión incondecional     Solidarity with algerian media     Solidarité internationale avec les médias algériens     Rsf denuncia el acoso a que está sometida la prensa     Nuevas detenciones de periodistas en Argelia     Le Matin newspaper harassed by police     Benchicou talks about attitudes to press freedom     Benchicou revient sur les 10 années d'existence d'une presse ébranlée par la guerre

Auguste 11, 2004

Until two months ago, Mohamed Benchicou was managing editor of a leading Algerian French-language daily, Le Matin, known for his stinging eloquence and exposés of corruption in high places. Now he is serving a two-year sentence for currency violations at El Harrach prison in Algiers, where he shares a stifling dormitory with 24 other convicted criminals and suffers from dangerously low blood pressure.

Benchicou entered prison June 14. Two weeks later, his newspaper's building was seized and sold at auction to pay back taxes. In July, the government printing office refused to print Le Matin until all outstanding bills had been paid in full. As of July 25, Le Matin and two other papers had disappeared from the news stands.

Benchicou is the most visible victim of a crackdown on Algeria's independent press that has intensified since the re-election in April of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. The currency charges on which Benchicou was convicted were trumped up, according to Ghania Hammadou, one of Le Matin's founders and its first editor in chief, who returned from Paris to take over the newspaper after Benchicou was jailed.

The Paris-based organization Reporters Without Borders and the New York-based group Committee to Protect Journalists agree with Hammadou, and have taken up his case. Benchicou's lawyers are expected to appeal the verdict against him in an Algiers court on Wednesday.

Benchicou's real crime was good old-fashioned muckraking. During the presidential campaign this year he published a book about the regime called "Bouteflika: An Algerian Fraud." Benchicou is "a man of conviction and commitment," Hammadou said. "He knew there'd be a price to pay."

In the southern city of Djelfa, in the poorest part of Algeria, the journalist and human rights activist Ghoul Hafnaoui has been in jail since May 24 for daring to investigate the deaths of 13 newborn babies in a local maternity ward within a single month last spring. For his enterprising legwork, Hafnaoui was rewarded with a three-month sentence. Several other charges are pending. Last week Hafnaoui's sentence was extended a further two months after he sent a letter to his 10-year-old daughter outside authorized channels.

In Oran, in western Algeria, the newspaper owner Ahmed Benaoum was jailed in late June for on charges of defaming the local government real estate office. The anti-defamation law passed in 2001 prescribes prison terms of up to a year for journalists guilty of defaming the president, Parliament, the courts or the military. But "local scoundrels," as Benchicou calls them, seem to make liberal use of it too.

Benchicou and a colleague are due back in court in November, on charges of defaming the Ministry of Defense, for having dared to report on torture and sexual humiliation of teenage boys arrested during demonstrations last May in the city of Tkout, in the Aures mountains, where a citizen's movement demanding local autonomy and clean government thrives despite heavy repression.

"It's not just freedom of the press that is at stake, but all our freedoms," Hammadou said. "We have to win everything back. The right for unions to hold meetings, the rights of the citizens' movement leaders in jail. We're being crushed with a steamroller."

But didn't the French government just offer the Algerian regime E1 billion ($1.22 billion) in credits and investments? She replied with startling passion, "Oh, for the French we're still just that race of natives." She surely knows, but is perhaps too polite to remind me, that the United States is just as eager as France to invest in Algeria. The American company Halliburton is building two hospitals for the Algerian military.

Benchicou's fellow prisoners in El Harrach call him the White Mandela, Hammadou said, because of his white hair and pale eyes, and because they know why he's in prison with them. The question now is, how to liberate him - and the disenfranchised millions of Algerians for whom he speaks - when not prevented from doing so.

Suzanne Ruta, author of "Stalin in the Bronx, and Other Stories," is a member of the writers' group PEN, whose Freedom to Write committee has adopted the cases of Mohamed Benchicou and Ghoul Hafnaoui.