✍️ BY: Dzair Tube
Algerian judiciary opens criminal investigation following televised remarks deemed a flagrant affront to national identity and constitutional principles.
Algiers, Algeria | May 3rd, 2025 — The Court of Dar El Beïda announced on Saturday, May 3, that the Republic’s Prosecutor has ordered a preliminary investigation and the arrest of Mohamed Amine Belghith, following the remarks he made during an interview on a foreign television channel.
According to the official statement, a widely circulated video on social media captured an interview between a journalist from a channel called Sky News Arabia and the individual Mohamed Amine Belghith, in which he noted that Tamazight (the Amazigh language) is a Zionist-French project.
The court emphasized that such statements constitute a ‘violation of the fundamental principles that govern Algerian society as enshrined in the Constitution, representing an assault on a key component of national identity and a blatant infringement on national unity, as well as the symbols and constants of the nation’.
In response, the Republic’s Prosecutor ordered the opening of a preliminary investigation and the detention of the suspect. On the same day, Belghith was brought before the public prosecutor, who initiated a judicial inquiry on charges of committing an act targeting national unity through actions intended to attack the symbols of the nation and the Republic, along with offenses of undermining the integrity of the national unity and disseminating hate speech and discrimination via information and communication technologies.
Following the interrogation by the investigating judge, an order for pre-trial detention was issued against Mohamed Amine Belghith, as confirmed by the court’s statement.
