Journalists prosecuted and printing of two newspapers held up

Reporters Without Borders expressed concern today at the 17 December court appearance in Algiers of two journalists, from the daily papers Liberté and Le Matin, after complaints by the defence ministry. Liberté did not appear next day because of what the state-owned Algiers Printing Company (SIA) called "technical problems." The organisation said it feared the defence ministry complaints against journalists, the latest of many, would lead to further media self-censorship. It also called on SIA to explain the problems it had printing some newspapers on time. Liberté's cartoonist, Ali Dilem, appeared in court after a defence ministry objection to a cartoon by him published on 16 January this year about the 1992 assassination of President Mohamed Boudiaf. The prosecutor asked for Dilem to be fined 40,000 dinars (about 500 euros) and the paper 1.4 million dinars (17,000 euros). Judgement was reserved until 31 December. The last cartoonist prosecuted in Algeria was Chawki Amari, who was given a prison sentence in 1996. The court also heard the managing editor of Le Matin, Mohamed Benchicou, in connection with six articles by Sid Ahmed Semiane (known as SAS) that the defence ministry considered libellous. The prosecution called for the paper to be given six fines of 1.4 million dinars (17,000 euros). Judgement was again reserved until 31 December. Printing of Liberté was called off by the paper at dawn on 18 December because it had been delayed too long by the printers, SIA. Editor Salim Tamani told Reporters Without Borders that for the past month, SIA had been printing the paper later and later, which was running up huge costs. "Since the paper owes the firm no money, this behaviour is clearly political," he said. Another daily, L'Actualité, has been having similar problems. Editor Amine Esseghir told Reporters Without Borders that SIA had failed to print the paper on time on four occasions in the past two weeks, even though SIA was paid in cash. The firm's new state-of-the-art rotary press always breaking down when certain papers came to be printed, he said.