(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, RSF deplored the National Assembly’s adoption of the Penal Code reform bill, which provides for heavy fines and prison terms ranging from two month to one year as punishment for press offences. “These new measures are a clear step backward for press freedom in your country,” […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, RSF deplored the National Assembly’s adoption of the Penal Code reform bill, which provides for heavy fines and prison terms ranging from two month to one year as punishment for press offences. “These new measures are a clear step backward for press freedom in your country,” underlined Robert Ménard, the organisation’s secretary-general. “We ask that you use all your influence so that the Council of the Nation [the Senate] does not adopt the Penal Code reform bill,” he added.
RSF recalled that in an 18 January 2000 document, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Opinion and Expression Abid Hussain asked that “all governments ensure that press offences are no longer punishable by prison sentences, except in cases involving racist or discriminatory remarks or calls to violence ⦠As a sentence for the peaceful expression of an opinion, imprisonment constitutes a serious human rights violation.”
According to information collected by RSF, the Penal Code reform bill was adopted by the General Assembly on 15 May 2001. Henceforth, Article 144 b provides for prison terms ranging from two to twelve months and fines ranging from 50,000 to 250,000 dinars (approx. US$700 to 3,500; 762 to 3,811 euros) for all “attacks on the president of the republic through the use of abusive, insulting or defamatory terms, be they in written form or drawings, or via statements, and regardless of the means used, be it orally, in an image, or via electronic, informatic or other support.”
From now on, legal proceedings can be launched directly by the public prosecutor’s office without the prior filing of a complaint. In case of a subsequent offence, the prison terms and fines are “doubled.” These penalties are also all applicable in cases where the offences are committed against “Parliament or one of its two Houses, the ANP [National Popular Army],” and also “any public institution or other state body.”
