Flamboyant newspaper of the Algerian media landscape, the French-speaking daily Freedom will cease to appear from Thursday, on the decision of its owner Issad Rebrab, boss of the agri-food group Cevital, the first private conglomerate in the country.
The decision to dissolve the publishing company SAEC was taken for “economic reasons”, which the staff refutes, referring to “political pressure” on the Algerian billionaire, seventh fortune in Africa according to “Forbes”.
The news of the closure of the newspaper recorded a week ago fell like a cleaver on the editorial staff and all the employees of the newspaper, but also on public opinion.
“After 30 years of existence, the daily Freedom turns off. The last week”, title in “One” the tabloid the day after the fatal decision cashed in the pain by the journalists and the readers of the newspaper, first circulation of the French-speaking Algerian press.
Political party leaders, public figures and academics tried in vain to dissuade the majority shareholder from taking action, in the hope of avoiding a “senseless” death at Freedom.
“Aware of the contribution of the newspaper Freedom to the cultural, social and societal life of the country, we call for its preservation,” urged intellectuals in an appeal signed by writer Yasnina Khadra and actor-comedian Mohamed Fellag.
“It is because a newspaper is a space for the exchange and transmission of ideas, values and citizen expression necessary for the democratic vitality of a country that it must be preserved”, they added. .
“The announced disappearance of this newspaper risks further limiting freedom of expression in Algeria”, reacted for its part the European Union (EU) to the decision to close the tabloid.
“The right to know, the duty to inform”
Founded in June 1992 in the wake of the democratic opening of October 1988, the French-speaking tabloid is a national heritage, a real institution that has established its credibility thanks to its seriousness, resistant to retrograde forces.
Freedomwhich paid a heavy price during the decade of terrorism in the 1990s with the assassination of four of its employees, including two journalists, will disappear, along with its motto affixed to its pediment: “The right to know, the duty to inform”.