Freedom House: Breaking the taboo on Intelligence improves Media Freedom in Algeria

Algeria ranked first in the Maghreb and Fourth in the Arab world, in the classification of the American Organization of Media Freedom across the world for the year 2013, as the report said that Algeria has made a “remarkable progress” thanks to a series of gains in the field of media practice and the ability of the press to deal with files that were considered as ” taboos”, in reference to the issues of corruption, which effected figures in the state, as various media addressed for the first time in the history of the country the file of ” intelligence”, which no one dares to mention its name.

Algerian media moved from the rank of “not free” to become “partly free”, an assessment that the American Foundation placed while classifying media practice across the world, along with Algeria, there is Tunisia, Yemen, Lebanon and Kuwait.

Freedom House report also mentioned that the restrictions were imposed on journalists after the Arab Spring revolutions that led to a decline in media freedoms in the region, as it showed that Egypt has seen the worst deterioration in the region, as it noticed a decline in the index of these freedoms to the pre- revolution on January 25, due to censorship and restrictions, leading to imprisonment of journalists , as is the case with Al Jazeera journalists.

Freedom House ranks countries by giving them points that range between 1 and 7 points, and the more closer the points that are awarded to the state to number one, it means they notice a progress in the area of freedom, while they are experiencing a decline in the level of freedom the closer the points get closer to number 7.