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Algeria Prosecutors Seek Tougher Jail Term for Prominent Activist

FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators hold flag during anti government protests in Algiers, Algeria April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina
FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators hold flag during anti government protests in Algiers, Algeria April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina
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Algeria Prosecutors Seek Tougher Jail Term for Prominent Activist

FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators hold flag during anti government protests in Algiers, Algeria April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina
FILE PHOTO: Demonstrators hold flag during anti government protests in Algiers, Algeria April 23, 2019. REUTERS/Ramzi Boudina

Algerian prosecutors have requested a tougher two-year jail sentence for prominent anti-government activist Amira Bouraoui during her trial on appeal, a prisoners' rights group said Friday.

Bouraoui, a 44-year-old gynecologist, is a prominent in the "Hirak" protest movement that secured the resignation of former president Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April last year.

She came to prominence in 2014 when she opposed Bouteflika running for a fourth term.

She was sentenced to a one-year jail term in June over a string of charges, including insulting the president and Islam.

Bouraoui was tried on appeal on Thursday night in a court in Tipaza, in the country's west, the CNLD prisoners' rights group said.

Prosecutors are now seeking two years behind bars for the activist, the CNLD said in a statement Friday on its Facebook page.

According to Agence France Presse, a verdict is expected on December 31.

The CNLD says over 90 people, including activists, social media users and journalists, are currently in custody in connection with the country's anti-government protest movement or individual liberties -- mostly for dissenting social media posts.

Bouraoui was granted provisional release in July, along with several other opposition figures.

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Syria Monitor: 101 Killed in Battles between Pro-Türkiye, Kurdish Forces

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
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Syria Monitor: 101 Killed in Battles between Pro-Türkiye, Kurdish Forces

A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)
A fighter affiliated with Syria's new administration shoots at pictures of Syria's ousted president Bashar al-Assad (R) and his late father and former president Hafez al-Assad, inside the abandoned Syrian Republican Guard (SRG) base near Damascus on January 4, 2025. (Photo by Bakr ALKASEM / AFP)

More than 100 combatants were killed over the last two days in northern Syria in fighting between Turkish-backed groups and Syrian Kurdish forces, a war monitor said on Sunday.
Since Friday evening, clashes in several villages around the city of Manbij have left 101 dead, including 85 members of pro-Turkish groups and 16 from the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The SDF said it had repelled "all the attacks from Türkiye’s mercenaries supported by Turkish drones and aviation".
The Turkish defense ministry said it had "neutralized" 32 Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, without providing further details.
Turkish-backed factions in northern Syria resumed their fight with the SDF at the same time as the opposition armed factions were launching an offensive on November 27 that overthrew Syrian president Bashar al-Assad just 11 days later.
The pro-Ankara groups succeeded in capturing Kurdish-held Manbij and Tal Rifaat in northern Aleppo province, despite US-led efforts to establish a truce in the Manbij area.
The fighting has continued since, with mounting casualties.
During a visit to Damascus on Friday, German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock said security of the Kurds is "essential for a peaceful Syria." She said this requires "an end to the fighting in the north and the integration of the Kurdish forces... in the Syrian security architecture."
The SDF controls vast areas of Syria's northeast, and parts of Deir Ezzor province in the east, where the Kurds created a semi-autonomous administration following the withdrawal of government forces during the civil war that began in 2011.
The group, which receives US backing, took control of additional territory after capturing it from the ISIS group.
Ankara accuses the main component of the SDF, the People's Protection Units (YPG), of affiliation with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a decades-long insurgency in southeastern Türkiye and is banned as a terrorist organization by the government.
The Turkish military regularly launches strikes against Kurdish fighters in Syria and neighboring Iraq, accusing them of being PKK-linked.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria's new leader and the head of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, told Al Arabiya TV in late December that local Kurdish-led forces should be integrated into the national army.
HTS led the coalition of opposition groups that overthrew Assad last month.