A 48 hours of the celebration of the 58th anniversary of the independence of algeria, the two images collide, summarizing the complex situation of the country. On one side, the splendour of the Republic at the people's Palace in Algiers-centre, where the president Tebboune presided over a ceremony of ranks and medals to officers of the national people's Army. This ceremony was previously celebrated at the headquarters of the ministry of Defence. "This is a symbol that to see the ceremony return to this place after decades (...) and after the step of drifting away the people from their rulers, and that has pushed the people to revolt with his hirak blessed for a radical change ", said the head of the State at the start of this ceremony in front of an audience of military and civilian leaders. The other hand, elsewhere in the country, a number of prisoners known as the hirak have been released from prison.
also Read Algeria : should it be "déconfiner" the hirak ?
Karim Tabuu interim release
Some six of them, were pardoned yesterday by presidential decree. The others have been released on bail pending their trial. Among them, the opponent Karim Tabuu, national coordinator of the party is not authorized by the Union democratic and social (UDS, created in 2012). He was released following the decision, Thursday morning, of the court of Algiers to accept his request for provisional release.
Imprisoned since 26 September 2019, Tabuu had been sentenced on appeal on the 24th of last march to a year in prison for " undermining the integrity of national territory ". He is also prosecuted for another case, for " undermining the morale of the army ", whose trial has been postponed to 14 September. The political activist, ex-first secretary of the Socialist Forces Front (historical opposition) has not, for the moment, made a declaration.
In this July 2, 2020, Karim Tabuu just been released from the prison Kolea, near Tipasa, 70 km from Algiers. © RYAD KRAMDI / AFP
Beginning last June, he had sent a written message to the public opinion from his prison : "A true new Algeria is the one that makes you want each of us to get involved in the construction of a common future. A true new Algeria is the one that prohibits the imprisonment of journalists, activists, trade unionists... A true new Algeria is the one who puts all, and all under the authority of law." The " new Algeria ", is one of the mantras of the authorities since the election in December 2019 of Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
also Read Algeria : the hirak more than ever under pressure with convictions of activists
Amira Bouraoui released
another figure in the scene of the opposition was released on Thursday during his appeal trial : Amira Bouraoui, who was one of the first launched, in 2014, a movement against the fourth mandate of the ousted president. Last June 12, the gynecologist, the 44-year-old was sentenced to a year in prison for a number of reasons : "Insult to islam ", "insulting" the president of the Republic, and "incitement to violate the containment" in " outlining the lives of others or his physical integrity at risk ". "The sentence pronounced by the court against Amira Bouraoui is clearly out of proportion to the facts alleged against him. Often extending on the rules conformists and wielding the words without politeness heard, Amira Bouraoui remains a committed activist, entire and unadorned. If it breaks often the consensus, she can also dare the rebellion of words without measure ", had at the time responded to the objector Soufiane Djilali, president of the party Jil Jadid.
also Read Algeria : press freedom set containment
Call to the healing process
The same Soufiane Djilali had the desired calming measures on the part of the authorities. "Ceaselessly the symbolic conflict "criminal jurisdiction versus icons of the hirak" can only strengthen the propaganda of harassment of media agitators, professional to prevent any institutional stability, " he wrote in this same text on its page Facebook.
He had announced at the beginning of June, the next release of Karim Tabuu and Samir Benlarbi, another activist who has just been released this Thursday, in companion of another activist, Slimane Hamitouche. According to Djilali, president Tebboune, that he requested him to release the prisoners, " has accepted to act, strictly within the framework of its prerogatives, constitutional and legal, and as a pledge of his intention to foster appeasement, and the national dialogue, so that Karim Tabuu and Samir Belarbi regain their freedom as soon as possible, at the end of the procedure, official presidential ".
also Read Algeria : "I cry in rage ! "
release, a subterfuge of power ?
calming Measures ? "The interim release of Karim Tabou, Amira Bouraoui and other prisoners of conscience informs us about the nature of the regime and its conception of law and the rights of the people. The police have arrested people who criticized the owners of the public authority, accusing State officials of making a bad use of this authority is supposed to be at the service of the public, " responded the political scientist Addi Lahouari its page on Facebook. "Then, these people, put in prison some time, are released provisionally. They will be judged a few months later by a court which will take into account their statements during the period of provisional release ". "By these decisions, the authority has today closed its communication operation in which he pretends to show an availability to the healing process by releasing certain players unfairly incarcerated for their opinions. This subterfuge does not mislead anyone ", commented, for his part, Mohcine Belabbas, president of the RCD (the opposition), a party that has denounced it, last week, the pressures of the authorities. "Only, an acquittal followed by a rehabilitation of all political prisoners and opinions without distinction of any kind and the cessation of arrests may be a signal of the awareness of the leaders on the fact that the repression, the abuses of freedoms or that the violence never came to the end of the determination of the people to live in a free and democratic Algeria ", said Belabbas.
What about the hirak ?
It is in this context that activists – and many observers – raise the question of the recovery of the hirak. "But how to resume the path of events while the country seems to be more trouble to control the spread of the new coronavirus ? "asked t-on, while the authorities come to tighten the screws even more after the increase of the case contaminated. "For reasons of denial guilty, some Algerians have not taken the precautionary view that the disease does not exist. They don't believe it. Others thought that with the arrival of summer, the virus would die in the sun ", is alarm Mohamed Bekkat Berkani, president of the national Order of physicians and a member of the scientific Committee of the national monitoring of the pandemic.
" In addition to this collective responsibility, there are also the flaws of the official communication and the non-decision-making by the public authorities. The Prime ministry issued a decree making compulsory the wearing of masks in the public space. More than 50 % of the citizens have not complied with this obligation in the cities, elsewhere it does not even talk about the mask." Three hundred and eighty-five new confirmed cases have been recorded in the past 24 hours in Algeria, said Thursday the authorities.
Read also The so delicate after-Covid-19 waiting for the Maghreb
