Mustapha Bendjama, the most harassed journalist in Algeria

On 8 February, Algerian journalist Mustapha Bendjama was at his office when police officers suddenly detained him, seizing his computer and cell phone.

The country’s security forces as well as its political establishment had been on edge after Amira Bouraoui, a longtime dissident who was legally forbidden from leaving Algeria, fled to France via Tunisia, provoking a crisis involving the three countries.

Bendjama had himself been banned from leaving the country in November 2019. Although the decision was lifted by the Algerian justice in April 2022, the police continued to enforce it arbitrarily. On three occasions afterwards, as he attempted to cross the border, Bendjama was stopped.

Bendjama happened not only to know Bouraoui but also to live in the eastern city of Annaba, her point of departure to Tunisia. The Algerian regime seized the opportunity to publicly depict him as an accomplice and jailed him.

Despite the fact that Bouraoui herself shared her exchanges with him, demonstrating Bendjama was not aware of her plans to flee and didn’t meet with her, he was incarcerated in connection with her escape after twelve days in custody and charged with “association of criminals with the aim of carrying out the crime of illegal immigration within the framework of a criminal organisation”.

"Bendjama's arrest occurred during a rise in state repression aimed at silencing even the slightest expressions of dissent and government criticism"

The prosecution didn’t stop there. In a separate case with, among others, researcher Raouf Farrah, also in detention, Bendjama was charged with “publication of classified information on the Internet” and “reception of funds from abroad for the purpose of carrying out acts against public order”. 

“How would he belong to a criminal network of illegal emigration when he himself is prohibited from leaving the national territory?” asks a local journalist who requested his name not to be mentioned.

“Bendjama is a professional journalist with integrity. He has been targeted since the Hirak by the authorities because of his coverage and his positions in favour of human rights and press freedom,” the journalist told The New Arab, referring to the widespread anti-government protests that swept the country in 2019. 

“They did that to him because in Algeria, like in many third-world countries, you don't simply get sent to prison because you're a journalist. They create a case against you because you're a nuisance,” said Merzoug Touati, a journalist based in Bejaia and editor of the news website El Hogra, who has been jailed on three occasions.

“Even though you don’t do anything, they detain you for four or five days and they find a motive. Several activists have gone through this. They take you to the police station. They open your phone and have access to your conversations and your private life and build a case even though they had nothing on you,” he explained. 

Bendjama’s arrest occurred during a rise in state repression aimed at silencing even the slightest expressions of dissent and government criticism. Another journalist, the editor of the last independent media in the country, Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, Ihsane El Kadi, was just sentenced to five years in prison on similar charges.

But the repression is wider than the number of detentions suggest. Hundreds of people are prevented from leaving the country while many are constantly surveilled and entangled in judiciary procedures.

Abdelkrim Zeghileche, director of Radio Sarbacane and member of the opposition party Union for Change and Progress (UCP), who lives in Constantine, has been jailed four times since 2018. He continues to undergo pressure on the part of local authorities and has been summoned twice since his release last year.

Since 2019, over 60 journalists have been arrested, many of them judicially harassed, while at least 17 have been incarcerated.

In this context, Bendjama's detention is far from surprising. For hardened observers of Algeria’s recent political evolution, it was only a question of when. The 32-year-old editor in chief of the Provincial, Annaba’s French speaking daily, had been on the authorities’ radar because of his critical coverage and his support of the Hirak.

Bendjama has been the most harassed and watched journalist across Algeria. The focus on him also stems from the fact that the city where his newspaper is based is the stronghold of the late army chief Ahmed Gaid Salah, Algeria’s strongman after the late Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s resignation in 2019, as well as of local barons.

In an interview last year, Bendjama asserted the number of arrests and summons he had endured exceeded 35 and that he had stopped counting. On three occasions - in December 2019, March 2020 and June 2021 - he was placed under judicial supervision which meant his encounters and movements were closely monitored.

When he joined the Provincial, he probably hadn’t imagined he’d become a prime target of the regime. As Bendjama denounced the corruption and special privileges of Annaba’s influential figures, he became the pet peeve of the local authorities.

"Bendjama's judicial ordeal reflects the evolution of the regime's repression strategies and the expansion of red lines after an increase in press freedom in the first weeks of the Hirak"

With the Hirak, he imposed himself at the national level and openly expressed his personal views on his Facebook page, ignoring the red lines despite the pressures and threats. When Bouteflika was about to run for reelection in 2019, he was among the first Algerians to take to the streets and, as the protest movement expanded, extensively reported on the demonstrations. 

Nevertheless, his struggle has attracted little attention. Unlike that of his counterparts in Algiers, his summons and prosecutions were rarely documented in the international press and human rights reports.

“[Journalists in smaller cities] work away from the cameras and projectors, in areas where they are not considered, where there is no real solidarity and where they take significant risks,” explained Touati.

“In Algiers, they have contacts with NGOs, foreign media correspondents. The system will do its calculations before putting you in prison. But if you are outside Algiers, it becomes very difficult. You find yourself in prison without anyone asking about you.”

Bendjama’s judicial ordeal reflects the evolution of the regime’s repression strategies and the expansion of red lines after an increase in press freedom in the first weeks of the Hirak. In 2019, Bendjama was detained on numerous occasions prior to the weekly Hirak demonstrations in order to prevent him from filing his stories.

In the fall of 2019, as the repression against government critics grew, he was placed in custody twice for 36 hours. One of these occurred during a tense and largely unpopular presidential campaign when he was arrested while a meeting held by candidate Ali Benflis took place near his office and drew protesters.

Despite not attending the protest, he was placed under judicial supervision and forbidden to be present at any protest, only to be acquitted in February 2020.

After Abdelmadjid Tebboune’s election in December 2019, the regime took advantage of the pandemic and the resulting withdrawal of the Hirak to focus on dissidents and journalists online. This is when the pressure on Bendjama’s work duties became more intense.

Facing simultaneous prosecutions, most of them based on Facebook publications critical of the government, he told The New Arab in an interview: “For each trial, there are several hearings. I wait all day and then the judge tells me it is postponed. This is my daily life. I spend more time at court than working on the field or in the newsroom”.

The pressure progressively grew until 2021, when Bendjama received two separate suspended sentences of two months in January 2021 for “publication harming national unity”. In February 2021, the Hirak returned to the streets for three months after a year break, leading to the most severe crackdown in decades, with thousands of people detained and over six hundred jailed.

In order to prevent a new mobilisation, the regime suspended opposition parties and prominent organisations involved in the Hirak such as the Youth Action Rally (RAJ) and more recently, the Algerian League for the Defence of Human Rights (LADDH).

In December 2021, Bendjama was sentenced to a year in prison in a case dating back to 2020. A complaint against him had been filed by the Governor of Annaba, Djamel Eddine Berrimi, for an article in which he had reported on a clandestine wedding during the Covid lockdown. However, he wasn’t incarcerated and his sentence has instead been hanging over him.

“Practising independent journalism in Algeria has become almost impossible. We have been witnessing a suffocation of the media, politically and financially, and the repression of journalists since 2019. Anyone who does not fall into line is prosecuted, even imprisoned,” the journalist said.

Ilhem Rachidi is a freelance journalist focusing on protest movements and human rights issues, mainly in North Africa.

Follow her on Twitter: @RachidiIlhem