Thursday, 14 June 2012

Algerian blogger faces jail for inciting protests

The Algerian prosecutor general filed a complaint with the Algiers court against young blogger Tareq Memari for inciting violence and calling for mass protests. Memari was arrested shortly thereafter. 


Memari, who could face up to three years in jail if found guilty, had posted a video on You Tube right before the recent parliamentary elections. In the video, Memari addressed Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and complained of the rising rates of unemployment amongst the youth. He told the president that he is boycotting the elections and called upon Algerian youth to do the youths. 


Memari then got out his voting card and burnt it in front of the camera ─ an act which drove the prosecutor general to ask for his arrest.
"Yes, I destroyed electoral placards and burned my voter's card... I opted to do that rather than immolate myself," the young blogger told the state prosecutor last month.

According to Amin Sidhom, coordinator of the Lawyers’ Network for the Defense of Human Rights and Memari’s lawyer, the accusations leveled at his client are all fabricated and his client’s actions are a normal reaction to government policies.

“Because citizens’ freedom is repressed and they are deprived of voicing their opinions through regular media, they resort to online means like what Memari did when he addressed the president from You Tube,”.

The action of burning the voting card, Sidhom added, is not punishable by law.

“This is his own card and he has the right to do with it as he pleases. Plus, what he did was a symbolic action to voice his discontent.”

Memari also faces charges for tearing down election posters which, Sidhom noted, does not imply insulting any government institution like the complaint claims.

“This does not even insult the Elections Commission.”

As for calling upon Algerians to protest, Sidhom pointed out that this is only a charge in “uncivilized” countries.
“In all civilized countries, citizens have the right to protest and cannot be prosecuted for doing so.”

The verdict in the case is expected on June 27.

Critics of last month's election say the ruling National Liberation Front's victory was never in doubt.

Other contenders in the election were widely seen as bogus parties recently founded to create an illusion of democracy or older parties co-opted by the regime.

Many Algerians opted to boycott the vote as a way of protesting the status quo in the oil-rich north African nation at a time when the Arab Spring was bringing sweeping political change to other countries in the region.

Official election results put the turnout at 43 percent, a figure that opposition parties and experts argued was grossly inflated.

An Algerian court last month sentenced a Yemeni Salafist imam to six months in jail, a $1,300 fine and a 10-year ban on visiting Algeria for having issued a religious edict urging voters to boycott the election.

Algeria is Opec’s new über hawk


Iran and Venezuela shoulder the moniker of the price hawks at the Opec oil cartel, but in their shadow, Algeria is emerging as the über hawk.
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, Youcef Yousfi, the Algerian oil minister, warned that “Opec faces a real risk”, suggesting the country is in favour of a production cut.Algeria’s growing hawkish voice is important because it is giving firepower to the other countries calling for higher oil prices at Opec. Take the acrimonious collapse of the cartel’s meeting in June 2011. The disagreement was largely blamed on Iran, but in fact it was the north African country which led the opposition against Saudi Arabia’s call to lift production to lower oil prices.
Algeria’s interests used to be aligned to that of Saudi Arabia. The change in its position is due to two main factors: first, after a decade of rapid increase in oil production, output is now falling; second, higher prices are needed to shore up Algeria’s deteriorating financial situation.
During the last decade, Algeria was one of the main stars of the Opec oil cartel, raising its output steadily – so much so it often violated the group’s self-imposed production limits.
The country pumped 800,000 barrels a day in early 2000. Following large investments by state-owned Sonatrach and foreign companies, oil output rose until it peaked at 1.4m b/d in early 2008. Since then it has fallen back to 1.1m b/d, according to estimates by the International Energy Agency.
Algerian oil production has been paralysed following the corruption scandal at Sonatrach in January 2010, which cost the jobs of almost all the company’s upper management, including its chief executive. Soon afterwards, Chakib Khelil, one of Opec’s most respected policy makers, was ousted as Algeria’s oil minister after more than a decade in the post.
“Bureaucratic delays within Sonatrach appear to have become entrenched as new management grapples with institutional inertia, which is further delaying long-planned expansion projects,” the IEA said in a recent report.
Algeria made things worse after it changed the provisions of its contracts with international oil companies, triggering complaints of “uncompetitive contract terms”. The country’s last three rounds of exploration contracts have attracted lacklustre interest from international companies. As a result, the IEA believes Algeria’s maximum oil production capacity would continue declining until at least 2016.
Worse still for the country, the kind of oil it produces is no longer in high demand, leading to lower prices compared to other streams. During the last decade, refiners bid up Saharan Blend, the main export grade of the country, because its low sulphur content made it attractive to produce environmentally friendly fuels such as gasoline. The stream sold at premiums as high as $3 a barrel over Brent in 2008. But the increase in US shale oil production and the closure of refiners in the Atlantic has led to a big rise in supplies of crude oil of similar quality. Thus, Saharan Blend is selling now at its biggest discount to Brent in at least a decade, trading $2.10 a barrel below Brent.
After years of rising public spending, exacerbated by the Arab Spring, the International Monetary Fund has warned that Algeria’s financial outlook has “seriously weakened”. The IMF believes that oil prices would need to rise to $100 a barrel to balance the budget – excluding salary back payments. This is more than double the $44 a barrel in 2006.
Last year, Algeria registered the second biggest budgetary deficit among oil producers in the Middle East and north Africa with a shortage equal to 3.6 per cent of its GDP. Only Yemen, with a deficit of 4.4 per cent of its GDP, fared worse.
The rise in the budgetary break-even oil price has prompted Algeria to break away from its old allies, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates, and to defend prices alongside fellow-hawks Venezuela and Iran.


Sunday, 3 June 2012

Algerian elections 'fraudulent'

(UKPA) – 


Algeria's legislative elections last month were fraudulent and the final results have no legitimacy, according to a long-awaited report by a multi-party election monitoring panel.
The National Commission for the Surveillance of Legislative Elections cast doubt on the May 10 parliamentary contests which were marked by low turnout, a dominating victory for two pro-government parties and a relatively poor showing by Islamist parties.
The results at the time were described as Algeria's bucking of the trend in the Middle East of Islamist parties doing well in elections during the Arab Spring uprisings.
"The electoral process was marred by multiple violations and excesses," said Mohamed Seddiki, chairman of the commission in a press conference. "These elections are completely unlawful."
Mr Seddiki accused the government of pressuring police officers, troops and other security forces into voting for two parties allied to President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. He said authorities also thwarted monitoring efforts by the panel.
The two pro-government parties together took 273 seats in the 462-person parliament, greatly expanding their presence and taking a comfortable majority. Islamist parties actually lost seats. Opposition parties have also condemned the election as fraudulent.
The 44-member commission was composed of representatives from several of the country's more than 40 political parties and but only 35 of those signed the report. Those from the pro-government parties refused. The commission is a consultative body and has no power to cancel the elections.
Mr Seddiki also complained that the government was hostile to its mission, and did not give it sufficient means to observe the elections.
A European Union observer mission reported that the elections took place in an atmosphere of calm efficiency, but did not describe them as free and fair.
Oil and gas-rich Algeria was largely spared the unrest that swept Middle East and North Africa in 2011, with a few protests quickly crushed by police. The government has raised wages and spent heavily to keep the population satisfied.