Algerian journalist given prison time for posts critical of gov’t

A state prosecutor in Algeria sentenced the reporter Ali Djamel Toubal to two years in prison last week for his Facebook posts of anti-government protests that included police conduct.

The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) announced the incarceration on Monday on its website, stating that it ”expressed dismay at the one-day trial and sentencing of... Ali Djamel Toubal and called for his immediate release.”

According to the CPJ, Toubal arrived on June 17 at the courthouse, and the prosecutor charged him with “insulting state institutions” and “distributing publications harmful to national unity.”

A judge convicted Toubal and sentenced him to two years in Mohammadia prison, wrote CPJ.

“We are alarmed that Algerian authorities appear to have discarded any pretext of due process of law and tried, convicted and sentenced Ali Djamel Toubal in a single day,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Coordinator Sherif Mansour. “Toubal is a journalist, not a criminal, and he must be released immediately and unconditionally.”

The journalist and press freedom advocate Mustapha Bendjama, who has been in contact with Toubal’s family, spoke to CPJ and provided information for the CPJ article.

The charges are related to Toubal’s Facebook posts. He chronicled where “his reporting and news stories and commentary about the anti-government protests that have taken place throughout Algeria since February 2019,” noted CPJ in connection with information it received from Bendjama.

Toubal’s lawyer, Mustapha Bouchakour, told CPJ that he filed an appeal in his case on June 18.

According to Bouchakour, Algerian authorities launched an investigation into the reporter’s activities in February 2020 because of his Facebook posts about police conduct during the anti-government protests that swept the North African country.