THE NEWSPAPER INDUSTRY IN ALGERIA

The Algerian press benefits today of a freedom inherited from a turbulent history, a freedom that is the envy of other Arab countries. This autonomy is matched with the existence of a myriad of publications, both French and Arab speaking that in all amount to over thirty different titles. The Khabar, a daily newspaper, has the largest circulation with over 400.000 copies, followed by Liberté, Le Quotidien d'Oran and Le Matin, with more than 100.000 copies. These daily newspapers are sold at the price of 10 DA (0,15 €). The creation of different regulatory organisms have been established both by the journalists seeking to develop a framework similar to the SNJ, but also by the government with the promulgation of a new law on information. Parallel to the changes that are sweeping the country, the Algerian press is currently living a period of transition and larger freedom that goes hand in hand with the democratisation the country is experiencing.

The dark years and the emergence of a new generation of journalists: the fighters

During the darkest period of Algeria's history between 1993 and 1996, 57 journalists were murdered and 5 disappeared. The journalists, as well as the women and the intellectuals, were all part of the battlefront and endured much suffering. In order to keep informing the general public and defend the free press, they oftentimes had to be courageous and brave. The pressure that they experienced was due to the many armed Islamic groups (GIA Groupe Islamique armés, AIS Armée islamique du Salut and FIDA Front islamique du Djihad armé) and the government, which prohibited the publication of information concerning security issues without their permission.

The organisation of the national press

The media professionals have long suffered from the absence of a syndicated framework ensuring the defence of their material and moral interests. Many tries at creating a trade union failed for a long time while their living and working conditions deteriorated. Thus after a series of meetings by the International Journalist Association of Alger in 1998 a motion was launched in order to promote "the creation of a representative organisational framework". The journalists from many different daily newspapers (Le Soir, La Tribune, El Watan, Le Matin, El Khabar and Liberté) also launched a call "to all the colleagues from the written and audio-visual press in the public sector in order to mobilize their resources at all levels (…) and to indicate representatives who could coordinate the different editorial lines." The CDR (Coordination Des Rédactions), a structure in charge of preparing the bases for a trade union met for the first time on the14th December 1997. Following a big scale public awareness campaign the bases finally organized themselves into a trade union at Algiers with the attendance of 250 journalists. The trade union, known as the SNJ (Syndicat National des Journalistes) was created for "all the journalists without distinction of any political opinion with the exception that they never condone extremist views, violence, crime, racism, nor sexism in any of their forms." This in itself was a unique progress in the sense that it constitutes the first ever written ban on gender discrimination.

The legal dispositions

The 2002 annual report of the journalist rights watch organization Reporters Sans Frontières underlined the pressure that the authorities exert on the local press.

On the 16th of May 2001 the National Popular Assembly, the country's equivalent to the legislature, adopted an amendment to the penal code through article 144 that envisages penalties from 2 to 12 months of prison and fines ranging from 50.000 TO 250.000 DA (720 to 3.600 €) against any offence to the president of the republic containing insults or slander (…) ".

These sanctions can be also applied when these offences are made " to the parliament in any of its two chambers and to the National Army (Armée Nationale Populaire) ". It is important to emphasize also in this framework the previous project concerning the law of information, introduced by the minister of communications on the 14th October 2002 and which constitutes, according to Maître Bourayou, a specialised lawyer in press affairs, " a supplementary bolt in order to muzzle the press". Indeed despite the absence of prison penalties for press offences this project of law implies a reduced margin for the new publications. Thus, an agreement between the communication ministry and the culture ministry is required for the creation of any new publication. What is upsetting the profession is the fact that it is explicitly affirmed that " any absence of agreement after 30 days means a refusal ". Faiçal Metaoui, chief redactor of El Watan thus commented that the Ministry of Communications now has the right to life or death of the nation's newspapers.

A freedom of press with half-word

The harassment of the private press is still into force, be it legal, economic or administrative. Indeed the government keeps a hand on most of the publications by keeping the printing houses under public domain. Thus, the daily news Liberté recently saw itself in the impossibility to appear the next day following a mishap with its printing house. Many daily news like El Khabar and El Watan are currently investing in independent publishing houses in order to protect themselves from this type of abuse. Journalists remain subject to censorship and self-censorship on numerous subjects considered to be of a taboo nature : Corruption, human rights, the DRS (the Algerian Department of Information and Safety), the influence of the army, etc...
There are numerous cases of suspected assassinations against journalists. One particular case points out towards the suspicious suicide of a journalist from the East of the country following a confrontation with the local authorities quoted in one of his articles dealing on corruption. According to the Ministry of Justice, from1996 to 2002, 141 journalists were tried within 156 cases dealing with the press.

The abuse of power

The problems of the Algerian press today are also posed in terms of the credibility and the veracity of the information published. Certain rumours become front page scoops. The deontology requires that the information be treated with critical analysis and that a meticulous double check of the sources be carried out, which is not often the case. The recent Orascom case in which the President of the Republic was criticized for his relation with Mr. Al Shorafa, a Saudi citizen, were proved totally unfounded illustrates how the line is thin between rumours and publishing in the front page. In addition, certain businessmen do not hesitate to buy the national press (newspaper editor and simple journalists) in order to have it on their side.

Within this framework, the problems are also posed in terms of ethics and deontology much more than in terms of freedom of expression. The Algerian people have the right to be informed and thus Algerian journalists must understand their role in forming public opinion, still rather misinformed and little apt to critical analysis. Algerian journalists must also redefine their role to re-establish their ethics and the professionalism of their job. This leads us to ask ourselves on the limits of the influence and power that the press enjoys nowadays. Society needs the press to be free but it also needs it to be responsible and conscientious.