ALGIERS, Nov 21 — Algerian police arrested one of the country’s most prominent writers, Lazhari Labter, in Algiers today, according to his son, who said the reasons behind the arrest were unclear.
“Two plainclothes officers showed up at Lazhari Labter’s house at 6:30 pm with a summons, the contents of which I am unaware of,” Amine Labter wrote on Facebook late yesterday.
He added that he did not know which of Algeria’s security services was holding the 70-year-old, who played a role in the North African country’s 2019 Hirak protests, which unseated longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika.
The writer’s son later said his father would be spending the night at a central police station in the capital.
Labter, a prolific journalist, editor and poet, is known for penning the so-called “18 commandments” of the 2019 protests, urging peaceful demonstrations against the authorities.
The author, who has worked for the International Federation of Journalists, is a former president of Algeria’s editors’ union and was a founding member of the national journalists’ syndicate.
According to local rights group LADDH, several Algerian journalists remain in the country’s prisons, either having been convicted or awaiting trial.
Reporters Without Borders ranks the North African country 134th out of 180 in its 2022 World Press Freedom Index. — AFP
