Tebboune Accuses Press Watchdog of Seeking to ‘Destabilize’ Algeria

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP)
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP)
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Tebboune Accuses Press Watchdog of Seeking to ‘Destabilize’ Algeria

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP)
Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune. (AFP)

Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune has accused press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) of working to "destabilize" the country with its campaign against the jailing of its Algiers correspondent Khaled Drareni.

Rights groups have "targeted" Algeria "to sap the stability of the country", he said in a meeting with local media representatives late Sunday.

"States do not attack us head-on but put non-governmental organizations in charge of the task," said the president, who singled out the France-based RSF for criticism.

Drareni, Casbah Tribune news website editor and correspondent for French-language TV5 Monde as well as RSF, was on September 15 handed a two-year jail sentence.

The 40-year-old was convicted over his coverage of the mass protest movement that toppled Algeria's longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika last year.

He was found guilty of "inciting an unarmed gathering" and "endangering national unity", a ruling that drew condemnation at home and abroad.

Tebboune insisted that "nobody is incarcerated (in Algeria) for an article they have written".

"We forbid insults and attacks on issues related to state security," the successor to Bouteflika said, without elaborating.

Tebboune said Drareni, whose name he avoided using in the encounter, had been sentenced for his "involvement in an affair that has nothing to do with the press".

The journalist, according to Communications Minister Ammar Belhimer, had been working without a professional press card and was allegedly in the pay of "foreign embassies".

After the verdict, RSF head Christophe Deloire said: "We are outraged by the blind stubbornness of the Algerian judges who have just condemned (Drareni).

"Khaled's detention proves the regime locks itself into a logic of absurd, unfair and violent repression," he tweeted.

Algeria ranked 146 out of 180 countries in the RSF's 2020 World Press Freedom Index.

Deloire, contacted by AFP on Monday, dismissed the president's charges against his organization as "lies".

They "aim to cover up his difficulty in defending violations of press freedom that are absolutely obvious to millions of Algerians", he said.

"We operate in Algeria like we operate elsewhere, on the basis of principles that we defend everywhere, including France."

On the bilateral front, Tebboune at Sunday's meeting welcomed what he termed a "positive" sign from Emmanuel Macron, president of Algeria's former colonial power France, despite the "complex" outstanding issues between their countries.

Macron and some of his advisers had shown "readiness and good faith" toward resolving issues dating back to the colonial period and Algeria's war of independence.

Algeria on July 5 buried the remains of 24 resistance fighters returned by Paris. The North African state has also called for the handover of colonial archives.



Olmert: ‘Humanitarian City’ in Rafah Would Be Concentration Camp for Palestinians

Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)
Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)
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Olmert: ‘Humanitarian City’ in Rafah Would Be Concentration Camp for Palestinians

Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)
Former Israel's prime minister Ehud Olmert looks on during an interview with AFP (Agence France-Presse) in Paris on June 9, 2025. (Photo by STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP)

Israel’s former prime minister Ehud Olmert said that the “humanitarian city” that Israel’s defense minister has proposed building on the ruins of Rafah would be a concentration camp, and forcing Palestinians inside would be ethnic cleansing, the Guardian reported on Sunday.

Israel was already committing war crimes in Gaza and the West Bank, Olmert told the daily, and construction of the camp would mark an escalation.

Israeli Minister of Defense, Israel Katz, has ordered the military to start drawing up operational plans for construction of the “humanitarian city” on the ruins of southern Gaza, to house initially 600,000 people and eventually the entire Palestinian population, stated the Guardian.

“It is a concentration camp. I am sorry,” Olmert told he daily, when asked about the plans laid out by Katz last week. Once inside, Palestinians would not be allowed to leave, except to go to other countries, Katz said.

The “humanitarian city” project is backed by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Israel’s refusal to withdraw from the area Katz envisages for the camp is a sticking point in the faltering negotiations for a ceasefire deal, Israeli media have reported.