Cartooning for Peace / Alert Algeria – Ghilas Aïnouche

Alert Algeria – Ghilas Aïnouche

On-going alert

30 November 2022

Algerian cartoonist Ghilas Aïnouche, sentenced to 10 years in prison in absentia and subject to an international arrest warrant.

On 30 November 2022, the Algerian cartoonist Ghilas Aïnouche, refugee in France since 2020, was sentenced to ten years in prison in absentia by the criminal court of Béjaïa (Algeria) for “attacking the person of the President of the Algerian Republic, attacking the symbols of the State and terrorism”, in accordance with Article 87 Bis of the Algerian criminal code. An international arrest warrant has been issued against him by the Algerian authorities.

 

On 4 May 2022, the cartoonist was summoned by the Algerian judiciary for his cartoons illustrating President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, published on his social media and in online opposition newspapers, such as the newspaper “L’avant-garde Algérie” or the television channel Canal 22. Already in 2017, according to the press, the cartoonist had also been attacked by Algerian police officers who physically abused him during a forbidden conference. Several months later, he was fired from the online newspaper TSA (Tout sur l’Algérie).

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced the verdict against Ghilas Aïnouche, and the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo supported its former contributor, denouncing the terrorism charge against him. In the 2022 Reporters Without Borders press freedom index, Algeria is ranked 134th out of 180 countries.

 

Cartooning for Peace condemns the fact that press cartoons caricaturing a political figure can lead to the conviction of its author and will remain attentive to the evolution of the case.

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