Algerian opposition figure released under judicial supervision

An Algerian court on Thursday released opposition leader Fethi Ghares and his wife under judicial supervision until investigations into alleged insults against President Abdelmadjid Tebboune and other allegations are completed, his lawyer said.

Ghares, a secular left-wing opposition politician, was charged with “insulting the President of the Republic” and “spreading false news and hate speech through social media posts,” said his lawyer Abdelghani Badi. AFP.

Messaouda Cheballah, Ghares' wife, who is also a political activist, was charged with “participation” in the main defendant's alleged misdeeds, Badi added.

Badi said the couple are required to “appear in court every 15 days” until a trial date is scheduled.

The couple were also banned from posting information on social media or speaking to the media before the September 7 elections, the lawyer said.

Fethi Ghares, 49, a former coordinator of the now-banned left-wing Democratic and Social Movement party, was arrested by plainclothes police at his home in the capital Algiers on Tuesday.

In a video posted on Facebook titled “Where is Fethi Ghares?”, his wife said police had asked her husband to follow them for “interrogation” and that he had not received a summons.

Ghares, 49, was arrested in 2021 and later sentenced to prison – also for insulting President Tebboune.

In January 2022, he was sentenced to two years in prison for “harming the person of the President of the Republic” and “disseminating information that could harm national unity” and public order.

He was released in March 2022 after his sentence was reduced on appeal.

Ghares, a figure in Algeria's secular left-wing opposition, joined the pro-democracy Hirak movement in 2019, whose mass protests swept long-time President Abdelaziz Bouteflika from office.

His party, the Democratic and Social Movement – ​​a successor to the Algerian Communist Party – was frozen indefinitely in all its activities by the authorities in February 2023.