Bouteflika Gives Green Light for Freeing Audiovisual Field

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika will meet with his ministers on Sunday to discuss the final version of the draft laws on media and civil society organizations, before being submitted for examination to the Parliament, amid the trend of political reforms initiated in the North African nation, to cope with changes taking place in the Arab region.

In this regard, the regime has accepted to open the audiovisual field for private investors, as stipulated in the bill on media that Mr Bouteflika would discuss with his ministers.

The opening of the media field in Algeria has been a longstanding demand by academics, journalists and politicians, noting that the code of media of 1990 stipulates opening the audiovisual field, but this law has been frozen by the regime since then.  

Yet, it is worth to mention that the new media bill allows private investors to create TV and Radio stations of sports and entertainment character, which means that the regime is still prohibiting completely freeing the audiovisual field, as information specialized audiovisual channels are still not tolerated.

Yet, observers expect the regime to gradually lean into that trend, regarding the growing demand of more liberties by the society, prompted by the “Arab Spring” that blows on the region.

Algeria counts 6 radio stations, about 46 local radio stations and 5 TV channels that are run by the government.

As for the bill on civil society organizations, the government has dropped the proposal suggested by ministers related to the creation of a national council for civil society, preferring, rather, offering more freedom to the civil society movement by imposing no authority on it.

Yet, the bill still bans organizations to be linked to political parties, and any association violating this article would be frozen. 

Associations would be banned, also, from being awarded aids and funds from foreign organisations, without concerting authorities, which should investigate the source of those aids and whether principles of the donors are in conformity with the association’s goals. 

However, the bill counts 11 other cases where the authorities could freeze associations, and sets conditions that should be met by any association desiring getting state aids.