The trial of the Algerian journalist and press boss, Ihsane El Kadi, is scheduled for March 12 before the correctional chamber at the Sidi M’hamed court (Algiers), according to the lawyers of the journalist who has been in pre-trial detention since the end of December. .
The director of the “Radio M” station and the “Maghreb Emergent” news site will be tried solely for “foreign financing of his company”, say members of the journalist’s defense collective, quoted by local media.
Several charges initially brought against El Kadi were dropped after his hearing by the investigating judge, according to the same sources.
Mr. El Kadi was placed in pre-trial detention on December 29 as part of an investigation for illegal fundraising and alleged attack on state security, after four days in police custody.
A petition organized by “Reporters without Borders” (RSF) to obtain the journalist’s release exceeded 10,000 signatures on Saturday.
At the beginning of January, 16 press bosses from various countries, including the Nobel Peace Prize winner Dmitri Muratov, brought together by RSF, called for his release and for the lifting of the “unacceptable” obstacles aimed at his media.
According to human rights organizations, some 300 prisoners of conscience languish, some for more than three years and without the slightest trial, in Algerian jails.