Aug. 28 (EUROPA PRESS) –
Algerian authorities have arrested opposition leader Fezi Ghares, who was sentenced in 2022 to two years in prison for alleged “offences” against President Abdelmayid Tebune, according to his family and the National Committee for the Release of Detainees (CNLD).
The CNLD said in a statement posted on its Facebook account that Ghares, a senior official of the Democratic and Social Movement (MDS) – successor to the Algerian Communist Party and outlawed by the authorities in February 2023 – was arrested on Tuesday at his home, from where he was transferred to a police station in the capital, Algiers.
He recalled that the opposition leader had been arrested “on multiple occasions” in the past and released in March 2022 after benefiting from a reduction in his sentence, which was imposed on him following his participation in the pro-democracy protests that broke out in 2019, which led to the departure from power of Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
Ghares’ wife, Mesauda Chebalá, has asked the authorities to provide details about her husband’s whereabouts and has indicated that she has gone to three police stations, without obtaining any information about him. She has therefore denounced a “kidnapping” by the officers in charge of the arrest.
The arrest comes less than two weeks before the September 7 presidential election, in which Tebune is seeking a second term amid complaints from opponents and activists about increased repression against opposition parties since he came to power in elections held in December 2019 following the resignation of Bouteflika.
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