The French-speaking Algerian daily “Liberté”, forced to put the key under the doormat. The reasons given by its owner, the businessman, Issad Rebrab, are far from convincing. “Freedom is erased out of hand from the public square. Dramatic. Because, in just a few days, newspaper sellers, readers, advertisers, but also the institutions of the republic will be orphans of a newspaper which has established itself as a reference from all points of view”, lamented the daily editorial.
Refuting the pretext of financial difficulties, the publication’s collective wrote that it did not understand “the real reasons” which led to its closure, stating that “the publishing company still has sufficient financial resources to allow it to continue to exist”. The European Union (EU) immediately reacted by considering that “the announced disappearance of the daily Liberté risks further limiting freedom of expression”, and by specifying in a statement by its spokesperson made public in Brussels that “the European Union invites all components of society and the Algerian authorities to preserve these spaces which are essential for any democracy”. The same source highlighted “the importance of a pluralist press to consolidate the rule of law and fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression”.
In this sense, the European Union has constantly alerted the international community to the security drift and the restrictions imposed by the Algerian regime against journalists and human rights activists. It should be recalled, in this regard, that the European Parliament had successively adopted in November 2020 and April 2021 two resolutions on the massive violations of human rights in Algeria, the limits imposed by the authorities on freedom of expression , the imprisonment of journalists and the repression and incarceration of Hirak activists.
Moreover, the closure of this newspaper, after 30 years of existence, occurs in a difficult and largely deplorable context for the Algerian press with many journalists prosecuted or condemned for in particular “defamation” of political leaders or for reasons of publications ” tendentious” on social networks. “It is a path and a voice of plural expression which are dying out in a country on the slope of non-single thought”, noted in a column published Thursday by Liberté, the Algerian writer Kamal Daoud, estimating, moreover, that the closing of the newspaper was “the victory of silence over words and of violence over debate. The victory of withdrawal, of rejection”.
On this, the editorialist of the daily Liberté castigated with great bitterness the decision of this brutal closure and considered that it is a “real media cataclysm that no one saw coming after thirty years of struggle and of existence”. “Those who think we are a disturbing newspaper that deserves its death can put up with us for another short week. They can then – sleep – undisturbed. But let them know that Algeria cannot rejoice at such an end. Because the disappearance of a newspaper is often followed by the birth of a demon,” he warns. In this respect, for his part, the vice-president of the Algerian Line of Human Rights, Saïd Salhi, underlined that “Freedom pays today for its editorial line”.
“As for us, the activists, in these moments, helpless witnesses of this umpteenth attack behind the back and against our achievements, we are all upset, we are left with only indignation”, he castigates in a press release issued audience. He further specified, denouncing a “power that gags free speech and opinion”, that as an objective ally of the system in its mission to kill discordant voices and the free press, the owner of Liberté has chosen to step out of history and from now on, it is part of the past”. For his part, the president of the Rassemblement pour la culture et la democratie (RCD), Mohcine Belabbas, strongly castigated Rebrab’s decision to close the daily, calling it an offering to power to bring it to revise a certain number binding economic measures for its Cevital Group.
Just as, joined to this vast movement of indignation and protest, a group of Algerian intellectuals, academics, researchers and artists who said they were “worried” about the fate reserved for the newspaper Liberté, expressed their deep attachment to media pluralism, emphasizing that they cannot remain insensitive to the risk of the disappearance of a title which carries the plural voice of Algeria.
This incomprehensible and brutal decision is yet another hard blow indirectly dealt by the junta in power in Algeria to the world of media and communication, especially since the newspaper “Liberté”, one of the oldest and most widely read newspapers Algerians, was created at the beginning of the experience of media pluralism and its first issue was published, at the height of the black decade, on June 27, 1992.
The daily, as it flourished, relied on a progressive approach and adopted a modernist, open and critical line, which did not fail to attract the wrath of politico-military authoritarianism. setting the rules and “limits” of human rights and in particular freedom of expression.
Moreover, this decision does not only affect the journalists, employees and technical personnel of the publication but also the readers and more generally the Algerians, in view of the influence provided by the newspaper “Liberté”, which remains one of the rare media in Algeria, characterized by the quality of its content, the professionalism of its teams, their observation of the ethics and deontology of the profession and their tenacity and perseverance in managing to receive and provide correct, objective and significant information. It is a deplorable act that challenges global civil society, human-oriented NGOs working and campaigning for the promotion of fundamental freedoms, including essentially that of expression and opinion… but also everyone.
Rachid Meftah