An Algerian court of appeals has upheld two-month jail terms for two journalists, including a Golden Pen of Freedom laureate, at the Algiers-based independent daily El Watan. The issue of decriminalising defamation in the country is once again back in the limelight.
An appeals court, ruling on March 4, upheld defamation convictions against Omar Belhouchet, publisher of El Watan, and columnist Chawki Amari, and sentenced them to two months in prison. In addition to the jail sentences, they were ordered to pay $1 million (10,000 Euros) in damages to the Prefect of Jijel for comments made in a column published in El Watan in June 2006, according to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN).
The decision has been condemned worldwide. El Watan is one of the best-known French-language dailies in North Africa.
Paris-based WAN and the World Editors forum (WEF), in a letter to Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, said criminal law "is a wholly inappropriate means of dealing with the issue of defamation and that such practice contravenes a number of international agreements." WAN/WEF called on Bouteflika to ensure that charges were dropped and to "ensure that defamation is decriminalised in your country as soon as possible."
Belhouchet, the 1994 laureate of the WAN Golden Pen of Freedom, is a well-known and respected member of the international community of newspapers and El Watan is a participant in the Arab Newspaper Development Programme, designed to strengthen independent newspapers in the Arab world. "The prosecution of Belhouchet and Amari seriously damages the international reputation of Algeria," WAN/WEF said.
“The use of the judiciary to settle political scores and to intimidate journalists has been on the rise in Algeria since 2004,” said Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) Executive Director Joel Simon. “We ask the Supreme Court to overturn Belhouchet and Amari’s convictions. Criminal defamation falls well below the international standards for press freedom.”
The case, according to New York-based CPJ, stemmed from a complaint filed by the governor of Jijel after El Watan published a column by Amari in December 2006 in which he accused the governor of using public funds to buy a car for his mistress, said the paper’s lawyer. Belhouchet and Amari were prosecuted for defamation and insulting comment. They were sentenced on December 24, 2006, to three-month jail terms and fined 1 million Algerian dinars (US$15,000) by a misdemeanour court in Jijel.
“President Bouteflika’s May 2006 decision to pardon journalists sentenced to prison terms temporarily removed the spectre of imprisonment, but without a real political will to reform the press code the threat remains real,” Paris-based Reporters sans frontières (RSF) said.
“Since the release of journalist Mohammed Benchicou two years ago, neither the head of state nor the parliament has taken any steps to decriminalise press offences. Neither should fines imposed threaten a journalist or their media’s financial integrity," Paris-based RSF said in a statement. Algeria is ranked 123rd out of 169 countries in RSF's 2007 world press freedom index.
