Algeria opposition figure released under judicial supervision

An Algerian court on Thursday released opposition figure Fethi Ghares and his wife under judicial supervision pending an investigation into the alleged insulting of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and other charges, his lawyer said.

Ghares, a secular leftist opposition figure, was charged with "insulting the president of the republic" and "spreading false news and hate speech through posts on social media", Abdelghani Badi, his lawyer, told AFP.

Messaouda Cheballah, Ghares's wife who is also a political activist, was charged with "partaking" in the main defendant's alleged wrongdoing, Badi added.

Badi said the couple are required to "report to the court every 15 days" pending a trial date.

The couple were also banned from posting information on social media or speaking to the media, said the lawyer, ahead of elections on 7 September.

Fethi Ghares, 49, a former coordinator of the now-banned leftist Democratic and Social Movement party, was arrested on Tuesday by plain-clothes police at his home in the capital Algiers.

In a video posted on Facebook and titled "Where's Fethi Ghares?", his wife had said police asked her husband to follow them for what they said was "an interrogation" and that he had had no summons order.

Ghares, 49, was previously arrested in 2021 and later sentenced to prison - also on charges including insulting President Tebboune.

In January 2022, he was sentenced to two years behind bars for "harming the person of the president of the republic" and "spreading information that could harm national unity" and public order.

He was released in March 2022 after his sentence was reduced on appeal.

A figure from Algeria's secular leftist opposition, Ghares in 2019 joined the pro-democracy Hirak movement - mass protests that swept veteran president Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power.

His Democratic and Social Movement party - a successor of the Algerian Communist Party - had all its activities indefinitely frozen by the authorities in February 2023.