Five Algerian dailies prevented from publishing

Of the seven daily newspapers that were told by their printers to settle their bills, five did not appear on Monday, 18 August. The five were trying to raise the necessary money, but no precise figures have been given for the amounts needed, which vary from paper to paper. It seems, nonetheless, that the amounts are sizeable. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - 16.08.2003 - Printers threaten to stop producing six newspapers Reporters Without Borders today accused the government of being behind the notices which six national daily newspapers - Le Soir d'Algérie, Liberté, El Watan, Le Matin, El Khabar, L'Expression and Er-Raï - received from their printers on 14 August warning them that they will cease at once to be printed if they do not settle all their debts by the afternoon of Sunday, 17 August. "This is clearly a political decision," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general Robert Ménard said. "There is no doubt that the government is responsible for these payment demands, which are grotesque way to silence the Algerian press," Ménard said. It was no coincidence that this threat came just when the newspapers had reported a series of scandals implicating leading government figures and their associates, he added. Ménard recalled that President Abdelaziz Bouteflika had posed as a champion of press freedom when he appeared before that European parliament in June, claiming that "no newspaper or journalist has been the target of any persecution whatsoever." At the same time, Prime Minister Ahmed Ouyahia had argued in favour of promoting press freedom. "It's time to put this fine talk into practice" Ménard said, warning the government that it would be "an enormous mistake" to ban these newspapers now, as the country was heading towards presidential elections in 2004. In a joint statement issued earlier today, the editors of the six newspapers accused President Bouteflika and Prime Minister Ouyahia of "using commercial subterfuges in order to punish independent newspapers guilty of revealing scandals and in order to silence them for a long time, instead of giving an explanation for the serious scandals affecting senior officials." The joint statement added: "The procedure is crude: these newspapers are being told that they have to settle all their bills, even though they are not yet due for payment. Everything suggests that the six targeted newspapers will cease to appear from Monday, 18 August for an indefinite period."