A total of 59 prisoners of conscience have been released in Algeria since the announcement of the pardon granted by President Abdelmadjid Tebboune on February 18, the Ministry of Justice said on Saturday.
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"
As part of the implementation of the decisions announced by President Tebboune on the occasion (...) of the second anniversary of Hirak (...), the number of detainees released, after the end of procedures and deadlines legal reached 59 people on Thursday,
”according to a ministry statement.
Returning from a long hospitalization in Germany due to post-Covid complications, Abdelmadjid Tebboune had decreed a presidential pardon in favor of Hirak detainees, in a gesture of appeasement towards the popular protest movement born in February 2019 A tweet from the Algerian presidency then specified that the measure concerned "
perpetrators of crimes related to information and communication technologies
".
The end of the "system"
The lawsuits against these prisoners of conscience were based in at least 90% of cases on posts critical of the authorities on social networks.
The Algerian authorities have been confronted since Monday, date of the second anniversary of Hirak, with the great return of the demonstrations of the popular movement, despite the ban on public gatherings because of the health crisis.
The Hirak continues to demand the end of
the
political
"
system
" in place since independence (1962).
Some 700 people were arrested across Algeria on Friday following the Hirak marches, according to human rights organizations, but they were later released.