Three years of El Kadi’s sentence must be served behind bars. His media organization was shut down and hit with a large punishment.
The Sidi M’Hamed court in Algiers sentenced prominent Algerian journalist Ihsane El Kadi to three years in prison after finding him guilty of “foreign financing of his enterprise,” according to AFP.
El Kadi, who is critical of the government and runs one of the few independent media organizations in the nation, was given a five-year term on Sunday, of which he must serve three in prison. Also, the court decided that Interface Media, which owns Maghreb Emergent as well as Radio M, the other publication El Kadi manages, should be shut down. The court assessed fines against the business and El Kadi totaling 11.7 million Algerian dinars ($86,200).
The journalist was first detained on December 24 and has been held ever since, according to the news website he runs, Maghreb Emergent, under a state security law that forbids the receipt of funds that endanger national unity or state security.
Following the journalist’s detention, Interface Media’s headquarters was sealed off and its records were taken.
Abdelghani Badi, one of El Kadi’s attorneys who skipped the session, told AFP, “We are going to appeal this judgment within the allotted deadline.” El Kadi’s legal team had disputed the allegations of foreign funding, pointing out that the only foreign transfer to his company had come from his daughter, who lives in the United Kingdom and sent $31,000 ($25,000) to the business in which she is a partner.
Journalists’ rights organizations like Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists, as well as human rights organizations like Amnesty International, have all denounced El Kadi’s detention (CPJ).
Thousands of people signed a petition for his release.
El Kadi’s detention was described as an insult to Algeria’s independent media by Sherif Mansour, the program coordinator for CPJ’s Middle East and North Africa region, in December. He urged authorities to “stop their harassment of the press.” Mansour claimed that Algerian authorities were suppressing some of the last remaining independent voices in the nation by detaining journalist Ihsane El Kadi and closing Radio M and Maghreb Emergent.
