Benchiba, Lakhdar. “Algérie, Une Capitale Interdite De Manifestation.” Orient XXI, Orient XXI, 15 Jan. 2018, orientxxi.info/magazine/algerie-une-capitale-interdite-de-manifestation,2216.
This article, written by Lakhdar Benchiba for independent magazine Orient XXI, describes mass protests that occured in hospitals all around Algeria this past month. Fifteen thousand different medical personnel protested as part of an effort led by Camra, the Autonomous Collective of Algerian Resident Doctors, in response to a revision of the country’s civil service code. Residents have been on strike since last November in response to the change which mandates between 1 to 4 years spent in the public health service upon completion of resident certification based on region, with the more populated northern regions being made to work 3 to 4 years. Residents find this change to be badly planned and unfairly and inefficiently organized, and have been joined in their protests by other medical professionals and medical students who sat out this month’s board examinations. Demonstrations in the capital, Algiers, were met with violence by police, and videos of bloodied demonstrators circulated widely on social media. Camra estimates that around twenty demonstrators were injured. Mass assembly is outlawed in the Algerian capital since the Civil War of the 90s.
The article uses government documents on the changes to the civil service in links to contextualize the story, as well as links to past reporting on assembly in Algeria and social media. The article is balanced in favor of the demonstrations, assigning more importance to commentary than to police quotes. The article criticizes the police for not taking other measures to deal with the protest such as recommending a relocation, and proposes a constitutional amendment protecting the right to assembly.