The predominant tic of the Algerian ambassador in France, Mohamed Antar Daoud, is undoubtedly the controversy that he triggers with each of his media outings. The personality of his excellence, the Algerian ambassador in Paris, is characterized by this extraordinary virtue, a clumsy expertise, unequivocal and nowhere else. This time, that is to say, yesterday Sunday August 8, he once again slipped.
The unfortunate man was trying to explain the content of his first press release about state measures regarding donations from the Algerian diaspora to their compatriots in Algeria. A citizen dynamic that the khaki regime tries at all costs to break by imposing a most restrictive system. It was bad for the good man, since his statements of a clumsy and awkward talent, earned him a bunch of names of birds, by Algerian Internet users interposed.
David got it all wrong, he messed up once again. Indeed, a good part of the Algerian diaspora and a number of Algerian citizens considered the words of his excellence the diplomatic representative of Algeria in France as “irresponsible”. Several groups in France who organize the solidarity operation have even called not to go through the Paris embassy, nor even less through the state institution in Algiers, the famous Central Pharmacy (PCH), one and only recipient of donations in Algeria. PCH is responsible for dispatching and routing donations across the country. Its main characteristic is to be eaten away by corruption and dysfunctions and lately it has been shaken by a huge scandal of embezzlement of public funds, its leaders taste the straw of the jails while waiting for those of the shabby benches of the court from Algiers.
However, as regards the set decor, it is a note published on August 8, 2021 published by the Algerian embassy in Paris, which started it all. While donations were flowing from all sides, from inside and outside an Algeria which has known for several days the most important wave of contamination with covid-19 since the start of the health crisis, the embassy of Algeria in Paris reveals that it has decided to centralize donations from the diaspora at the level of the Central Pharmacy of Algiers. This decision caught unawares and shattered the momentum of solidarity of collectives and associations of Algerian nationals in France and many of them decided to suspend donations to Algeria, like the Thagmats association of Boghni. , (Boghni being a municipality in the wilaya of Tizi Ouzou, in Kabylia).
On its Facebook page, the association expressed its amazement after receiving the famous note indicating “The centralization of donations from the diaspora for the benefit of the central pharmacy of Algiers”. The Association’s response has been radical. “Our association strongly denounces this note, and informs all donors and participants in our magnificent outpouring of solidarity that we are stopping until further notice any delivery of aid and donations entrusted to us”. According to the association’s statement, the donations were, and will remain, intended for Boghni, in the wilaya of Tizi Ouzou, where a real outbreak of contamination has been recorded in recent weeks. “Our association is not intended to play politics, but we want to channel aid and donations to the destination desired by donors, that is to say the entire region of Boghni”, says Thagmats Boghni’s press release. And to make matters better, his excellence the ambassador added his own with his statements. These include these two phrases widely shared on social networks: ” if there are people who have the means to buy concentrators, to transport them themselves, and to distribute them in their villages or in their communes, let them do it. The state does not prevent them “.
Sentences followed by: ” Personally, I represent all of Algeria, from north to south, and from east to west. I don’t work for a specific region. Donations should be sent to the Minister of Health. It is up to him to lead operations “. These words unworthy of a diplomat ” refusing the right to solidarity and stigmatizing a region », In this case Kabylia not to name it and not to annoy Abdelmadjid with the unpronounceable name, aroused a wave of indignation on social networks in Algeria. Some see it only as the voice of his master, of an ambassador for ” break the tremendous outpouring of solidarity by wanting to control donations and divert them from their initial recipients “. This awkward exit from the embassy once again caused a reaction in particular, the vice-president of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, Said Salhi, who described it as ” A serious slippage of the Algerian diplomat. Staggering, barely veiled remarks against Kabylia. Fortunately our diplomats do not communicate much, otherwise they would have caused several diplomatic incidents “.
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