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Some 70 people are in prison because of their links to the Hirak movement or other peaceful political activities of the opposition, according to a rights group.
Algeria released a dozen activists of the “Hirak” protest movement from prison on Friday, the first batch released under a presidential pardon granted before the second anniversary of a popular uprising.
President Abdelmadjid Tebboune, in a long-awaited speech to the nation on Thursday evening, declared dozens of pardons in a gesture of appeasement as the protest movement gathered momentum.
The “Hirak”, which means “movement” in Arabic, swept former strongman Abdelaziz Bouteflika from power in 2019, but continued after his fall.
The National Committee for the Release of Prisoners (CNLD), a rights group, announced the release on Friday, and more prisoners are expected to be released soon.
About 55 to 60 Hirak members would benefit from the amnesty, Tebboune said, with their release to begin immediately.
About 70 people are currently in prison for their links with the Hirak movement or any other peaceful political activity of the opposition, according to the CNLD.
Many of them have been arrested for anti-government social media posts.
The presidency said the pardon would cover “perpetrators of crimes related to information and communication technologies”.
On Friday, journalists and families gathered to await the release of prisoners outside the prison in Kolea, a town 20 km west of the capital Algiers.
Among the prisoners held at Kolea is journalist Khaled Drareni, who was sentenced to two years in prison in September and who has become a symbol of the struggle for press freedom in Algeria.
Tebboune’s initiative comes on the eve of the Hirak’s second anniversary on February 22, demanding a radical overhaul of the system in power since Algeria’s independence from France in 1962.
The unprecedented protest movement only suspended rallies in March of last year, as the new coronavirus reached the North African country.
Tebboune also announced Thursday the dissolution of the lower house of parliament and called for early parliamentary elections.
Algeria is facing political and economic crises, the pandemic adding to the woes of an oil-dependent economy.
On Tuesday, thousands of Algerians gathered in the northern city of Kherrata, where the first major protest erupted in 2019 against Bouteflika’s candidacy for a fifth presidential term.
The demonstrators called for “the fall of the regime” and “the release of prisoners of conscience”.
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