Once-feisty Algerian press grows tamer

By Lamine Chikhi

ALGIERS (Reuters) - A campaign of murder failed to crush blossoming Algerian journalism in the 1990s, but now civil war has been replaced by an uneasy peace, the country's press may have lost in liberty what it gained in security.

In a country where secular reporters have been shot dead, beheaded or had their throats slit, press freedom has in recent memory been a matter of life or death.

"Nowadays I can sit and relax in a cafe," said newspaper editor Omar Belhouchet, who escaped an assassination attempt in 1993. "That wasn't possible before. Then, we lived in semi-secrecy."

But journalists say the fledgling independent private press is becoming tamer in its reporting, a trend some put down to attempts by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika's supporters to quell criticism of him before a 2009 election at which he may stand.

"The space for freedoms has narrowed compared to the 1990s," said Mahmoud Belhimer, deputy editor-in-chief of top-selling El Khabar, a daily critical of Algeria's stagnant private sector and authoritarian bureaucracy. Economic growth of 4.6 percent in 2007 was largely driven by rising prices for oil and gas which account for 98 percent of export revenues.

"There is less enthusiasm and less determination among the journalists, and less aggression in the articles. We are in a phase of regression," Belhimer told Reuters.

Several reporters have been sentenced to prison for defamation in recent years: none have gone to jail and they remain at work, but the threat remains pending appeals.

Editors say press curbs do damage beyond electoral politics: they help to shore up a strong Algerian tradition of state secrecy, which stifles the creation of a modern market economy able to generate jobs and shore up social stability.

"We're in a sort of guerrilla struggle with the authorities," Belhouchet, who edits prestigious French-language daily El Watan, told Reuters: "There are pressures of all sorts. Things today are fairly tense."

That editors speak of aggression and guerrilla battles stems from their roots. The creation of independent newspapers was made possible when a state monopoly on the press was lifted in 1990, but that coincided with a disastrous experiment in genuine political pluralism.

COMBATIVE SPIRIT

In 1992, after a military-backed government scrapped elections that a newly created radical Islamist party was set to win, Algeria descended into violence which killed more than 150,000 people.

Fighters of the Armed Islamic Group seeking to overthrow the state targeted secularist journalists, vowing that "those who attack us with the pen shall die by the sword".

More than 60 journalists and some 20 support staff were killed, including state media employees, and scores of reporters resorted to living under state protection in a hotel, the El Manar in Sidi Fredj near Algiers.

Out of this grew a combative spirit. Dozens of titles sprang up, many of them outspoken, and today there are 65 dailies although broadcasting remains a state monopoly.