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| - An Algerian court was due to begin hearing Tuesday an appeal by journalist Khaled Drareni against a three-year jail term handed down last month in a case seen as a barometer of press freedoms in the North African country. Drareni, 40, was swept into the court complex in a bus, as a small crowd of protesters gathered outside demanding his release. "Khaled Drareni is a free journalist," they shouted. Editor of the Casbah Tribune news site and correspondent for French-language channel TV5 Monde, Drareni was convicted on August 10 for "inciting an unarmed gathering" and "endangering national unity" through his coverage of demonstrations by the Hirak protest movement which ousted longtime president Abdelaziz Bouteflika last year. Press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF), for which Drareni also works, condemned the three-year jail term as "arbitrary, absurd and violent". Initially, Drareni had only been due to appear at the appeal by video conference from Kolea prison outside Algiers where he has been held since March 29. But the justice ministry decided otherwise, although access for the press to Tuesday's hearing was extremely limited. By early afternoon the appeal had still not begun, with the court first hearing other cases. His lawyer Mustapha Bouchachi told AFP that he had seen Drareni two days ago. "He's holding up, he's confident. If the Algiers court follows the law, the only thing it can do is acquit him." Drareni was arrested on March 7 while covering a protest led by the Hirak, and accused of having criticised Algeria's political system on Facebook, according to RSF. He has denied the accusations against him, insisting during his trial that he had been merely doing his job as an independent journalist and exercising his right to inform. Since Drareni was jailed last month, thousands of people have signed petitions calling for his release, noting that his sentence was "the heaviest" handed down to a journalist in decades in Algeria. Signatories include academics, lawyers and fellow journalists, as well as writer and independence war veteran Louisette Ighilahriz. The appeals of co-defendants Samir Benlarbi and Sliman Hamitouche, both leading Hirak figures, are also being heard. They were each sentenced to two years in jail. On the eve of the trial, journalists and human rights activists rallied in Paris, Algiers and Tunisia demanding Drareni be freed. RSF secretary general Christophe Deloire said Algerian authorities had "made him (Drareni) a symbol of the defence of freedom of the press". The appeal comes after the government agreed draft changes to the constitution over the weekend that will be submitted to parliament for approval ahead of a nationwide referendum in November. President Abdelmadjid Tebboune said the reforms "respond to the demands of the popular movement". Tebboune, a former premier under Bouteflika who was elected in December, has promised to break with the old regime, seen as synonymous with authoritarianism, corruption and nepotism. But the constitutional changes his government is proposing fall far short of the protest movement's demands for wholesale political reform and the departure of all Bouteflika-era officials. Regular weekly protests organised by the Hirak movement were stopped in March in the face of the coronavirus pandemic. But as the referendum looms, they are expected to regain steam. The government has kept up a crackdown on the protest movement and its supporters in the political opposition and the media. The CNLD prisoners' rights group says around 45 people linked to the Hirak are currently behind bars, with several of them facing trial. In recent months, the government has accused journalists of spreading discord and subversion. During a meeting with the press in May, Tebboune hinted without naming Drareni that he may have been "an informer for foreign embassies". RSF ranked Algeria 146 out of 180 countries and territories in its 2020 World Press Freedom Index, five places lower than in 2019. bur-agr/hkb-jkb/hc
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