Arrested for a simple Facebook post. This is the fate reserved for the publisher Salima Melizi, since released by the Algerian regime, reports Marianne. His fault? Having published, in mid-July, a short message denouncing the way in which Ibtissem Hamlaoui managed the distribution of aid from the Algerian Red Crescent (CRA) during the fires in Kabylia and northern Constantine. The poet mocked “the president who distributes aid as if it were her own”. Visibly upset, the person concerned filed a complaint for defamation with the central Algiers gendarmerie, as usual, since according to our colleagues, she systematically pursues those who criticize her.
Salima Melizi was then summoned by the authorities, then placed under arrest, along with another editor, provoking an outcry from journalists, writers and ordinary citizens. Faced with pressure, she was finally released on November 1 and her hearing postponed to November 6. This case is added to a long list of arbitrary arrests, targeting in particular collaborators of Ibtissem Hamlaoui.
Several similar cases
Yacine Ben Chattah, former program director of the CRA, who also went to prison, accuses its president of having “put together a file” against him, accusing him of having created false Facebook pages to insult him. In a video which made the rounds on social networks, he assures that she would have intervened directly in the gendarmerie premises to dictate changes to the reports. Another ex-employee, Hadjer Zitouni, former communications manager for the CRA, was subjected to similar treatment and spent six months behind bars.
Where does Ibtissem Hamlaoui get so much power from? A doctor by training, former FLN MP, she has been president of the CRA since 2022 and was appointed this year as head of the National Observatory of Civil Society (ONSC), an advisory institution attached to the Presidency of the Republic. Two positions which give him undeniable influence in the highest Algerian spheres, and allow him, according to some, to whisper in the ear of Abdelmadjid Tebboune… After this umpteenth affair, many journalists and rights defenders called for the opening of an impartial investigation in order to preserve the credibility of the CRA.
