“We have many ideas, but most of them could land us in prison in the new Algeria,” says Abdelkrim Zeghileche.
He regularly gives free reign to his thoughts on social media. Yet, this has resulted in numerous prison terms since 2018 for the former entrepreneur.
Like fewer and fewer Algerians, he continues to regularly post messages critical of the government online, despite the risk of detention.
Dozens of people are currently languishing in Algerian prisons for voicing criticism of the authorities on social media.
This repression has intensified in recent weeks, with the appearance in December of a new hashtag expressing the rejection of government policies, which have gone viral in the country.
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#Manich_Radhi or “I am not happy, satisfied” has been shared by thousands of Algerians to vent their discontent with the social and political situation in their country as well as the lack of freedoms.
The slogan appeared after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Many Algerians drew a parallel online between these events and the situation in their country, warning the authorities of a similar fate.
While the Hirak, the vast protest movement that led to the fall of long-time autocrat Abdelaziz Bouteflika in 2019, has since been completely neutralised by the authorities, including through the arrest of activists, Algerians saw in the Syrian scenario, where the people’s revolution finally seemed to triumph, a hope for their own fight for democracy.
A hashtag that can lead to jail
The Algerian authorities responded by arresting several dozen people, such as Souhil Debbaghi, a factory worker who had already been incarcerated repeatedly for his political activism.
He was arrested again at the end of December for posting a video in which he said he was not happy with the situation in the country and mentioned the many young Algerians who risk their lives crossing the Mediterranean in search of a better future elsewhere.
He was brought up for immediate trial and sentenced to two years in prison.
Mohamed Tadjadit, who was nicknamed “the poet of the Hirak” during the uprising, met the same fate.
‘Since 2022, arrests have been made regularly, but not in large numbers. However, in a few days at the end of December, the number of people arrested exceeded the number of imprisonments for the whole of 2024’
– Zaki Hannache, human rights activist
Released last November as part of a presidential pardon after spending more than three years in jail since 2019 for his political activism, the young man was sentenced to five years in prison in January for “inciting hatred on social media” because of his involvement in the Manich Radhi campaign.
Another emblematic case is that of journalist Abdelwakil Blamm. After posts drawing a parallel between Syria and Algeria, the 50-year-old was arrested a first time, released, then arrested again on 29 December and issued an arrest warrant after a week in police custody.
Accused of “publishing false information that could undermine national unity” as well as “supporting a terrorist group”, without further details being provided, he has been incarcerated in El-Harrach prison in Algiers, where he is awaiting his trial.
While the arrest of activists is not new in Algeria, what has happened since December is quantitatively striking, according to Zaki Hannache, an Algerian human rights activist now based in Canada who was himself incarcerated for his activism in 2022.
“Since 2022, arrests have been made regularly, but not in large numbers. However, in a few days at the end of December, the number of people arrested exceeded the number of imprisonments for the whole of 2024,” he told Middle East Eye.
Hannache, who now works for an international human rights group, has recorded around 40 arrests in connection with the hashtag, including 25 people under arrest warrants and the rest under judicial supervision. The people concerned are mainly activists known since the Hirak.
‘Panic’ within the authorities
The wave of arrests linked to the Manich Radhi hashtag came right after an announcement of presidential pardon measures for 2,471 detainees, including 14 “definitively sentenced for crimes against public order”, as the official discourse designates prisoners of conscience.
However, in the end, only a few releases took place. Their number was not specified but according to Hannache, only five people were freed – young people whose cases had not been covered in the media.
Several new arrests were carried out, illustrating a trend of intermittent release of detainees through presidential pardons followed by new arrests as soon as protest and pro-democracy campaigns are organised.
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According to journalist Mohamed Iouanoughene, the Manich Radhi hashtag has “created a wave of panic” within the Algerian authorities, who fear another uprising more than anything else.
“The leadership knows that if they free up civic spaces, the regime will no longer have the levers allowing it to control the opposition, especially since the political parties are not well structured. So the only solution left is repression, which the government even fails to take responsibility for,” Iouanoughene told MEE.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune himself reacted to the “I am not happy” trend on social media.
“Let no one think that Algeria can be devoured by a hashtag. We will protect this country whose people have the blood of martyrs flowing in their veins,” he said during a meeting between the government and the prefects.
In addition to the arrests, the authorities responded by encouraging the spread of a counter hashtag – “Ana maa bladi” (“I am with my country”) – used by some Algerians to express their solidarity with their leaders.
The authorities also waged their counter-attack abroad, where they regularly try to reduce the influence of foreign-based opponents on the diaspora and even on Algerians at home, where these anti-government activists are often the only source of information.
‘The leadership knows that if they free up civic spaces, the regime will no longer have the levers allowing it to control the opposition … So the only solution left is repression’
– Mohamed Iouanoughene, journalist
Algiers pushed Algerian influencers based in France to use the alternative hashtag and threaten opponents, thus avoiding any direct involvement.
The campaign led to the arrest of several Algerian influencers on French territory, who were accused of “spreading hate messages” and “inciting violence” on social media.
One of them, named Doualemn, was expelled by France after publishing a video on TikTok in which he called for a demonstrator opposed to the Algerian government to be made to suffer.
Algiers refused to accept its national and sent him back, exacerbating the diplomatic crisis which has been under way between the two countries since French President Emmanuel Macron backed Morocco’s claim of sovereignty over Western Sahara last July. The non-autonomous territory mostly controlled by Rabat is claimed by the Polisario Front, a Sahrawi independence movement that is supported by Algiers.
The ingredients for a new uprising?
According to human rights defenders, there are between 200 and 250 prisoners of conscience in Algeria, mainly linked to the 2019 protest movement.
After the brief interlude of the Hirak, which raised hopes for the possibility of a democratic transition, Algeria has been plunged back into the straitjacket of oppression under the mandate of its current leadership.
Elected in December 2019 after a controversial vote, President Tebboune was re-elected to a second term in September amid repression and the absence of meaningful political debate.
Algerian authorities have been accused by rights groups of crushing dissent and closing civic space by restricting freedoms of expression, press, association, assembly and movement. They have tightened criminal laws and continued to use repressive legislation – including anti-terrorism provisions – against any critical voices.
In January, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights defenders, Mary Lawlor, expressed her dismay at the continued criminalisation of activists in Algeria.
“More than a year after I visited Algeria – at the end of 2023 – I am deeply disappointed to see that human rights defenders in different fields of work … are still being arbitrarily arrested, judicially harassed, intimidated and criminalised for their peaceful activities under vaguely worded provisions, such as ‘harming the security of the state’,” Lawlor said.
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She cited, “among the most alarming cases”, that of Merzoug Touati, an independent journalist and human rights defender who has been subjected for years to trials on “spurious charges” and was “allegedly physically and psychologically tortured while in police custody for five days”.
In addition to the arrests, Algerian authorities have increasingly used arbitrary travel bans to retaliate against perceived critics, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the MENA Rights Group said this month.
The bans, often unlimited in duration, prevent people from leaving the country. Imposed without formal notice, they are almost impossible to challenge.
“These travel bans are part of a broader campaign of continued harassment of critics of the government, aimed at silencing dissent and eradicating civic space,” said Bassam Khawaja, deputy Middle East and North Africa director at HRW.
The two NGOs documented 23 cases of Algerian nationals subject to travel bans, in a pattern they said has intensified since 2022.
For some observers, all this constitutes the perfect formula for a new popular uprising.
Adel Boucherguine, one of the leaders of the main and oldest Algerian human rights organisation, created in 1985 and dissolved in 2022 under Tebboune, believes that “the disenchantment between the governed and the governors has never been greater”.
For him, the Hirak has not said its last word. On the contrary, “all the ingredients are there for it to start again”, he said.
As expressed by the Manich Radhi trend, the frustration today indeed seems similar to that of the early days of the uprising, the sixth anniversary of which will be celebrated on 22 February. The hashtag shows that the spirit of protest is still there, while anger has not subsided and the government is isolated.
As for whether the people are ready to rise up again, opinions differ. Meanwhile, faced with this umpteenth wave of repression, the “I am not happy” hashtag has for the time being disappeared from social media.
