The French-speaking Algerian daily “Liberté” ceases to appear from this Thursday, April 14, after the decision of its owner, the wealthy businessman Issad Rebrab, to liquidate it.
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“Thank you and goodbye”headlines the daily Freedom for its last cover, after 30 years of existence. “The curtain has fallen on Freedom, our newspaper, your newspaper which for thirty years carried the ideals of democracy and freedom and constituted the mouthpiece of Algeria which is moving forward. It is an exhilarating page in the exercise of the profession that is turning, under the battering of a media policy that is hostile to say the least, inefficient and, above all, damaging to the interests and image of the country”, writes on the front page the newspaper that bears the motto “The right to know and the duty to inform”.
— Freedom (@JournaLiberteDZ) April 13, 2022
After experiencing euphoria when the media landscape was opened up to the private sector at the end of the 1980s, Algeria has seen titles such as The morning, The gallery or the weekly The nation, for lack of advertising revenue and due to a fall in their sales. The closing of Freedom occurs in a difficult climate for the Algerian press, with a dozen journalists prosecuted or sentenced, in particular for defamation of politicians or because of publications on social networks.
“”It is a way and a voice of plural expression that is dying out in a country on the slope of non-unique thought””
Kamel Daoud, journalist-writerat Liberty
It is a way and a voice of plural expression that is dying out in a country on the slope of single non-thought.https://t.co/YysYSKrQgt
— kamel DAOUD (@daoud_kamel) April 7, 2022
Intellectuals and Algerian personalities had signed a petition for the owner to reconsider his decision. In vain. Issad Rebrab is the second richest man in the Arab world, according to the magazine Forbes who estimates his fortune at 3.8 billion dollars (3.5 billion euros). The billionaire, who in the past wanted to build a media empire, now wants to focus on the industry when handing over to his heirs. The world of the media has been a source of hassle for him, and earned him strong political pressure.
The latest DILEM from the latest edition of the daily newspaper Liberté pic.twitter.com/QbFsad8qHq
— Berber Television (@BerbereTV) April 14, 2022
Algeria is ranked 146th (out of 180) in the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) 2021 World Press Freedom Index.