Workers denounce "asphyxiating" working conditions

Algeria's leading daily on strike after 4 months without salary

photo_camera AP/FATEH GUIDOUM - A man reads an article in the newspaper El Watan in Algiers on Sunday 22 May 2022

Employees of the Algerian newspaper El Watan (The Motherland), the best-selling French-language daily, announced Tuesday a 48-hour strike starting Wednesday to denounce their "suffocating" economic conditions after four months without pay.
 
"For the 150 journalists and employees, the social situation has become critical and has exceeded the threshold of tolerance, especially because the horizons are blocked to find a way out of the financial asphyxiation that the company has suffered," the board of directors said in a statement.
 
The national daily, founded in 1990, has been suspended several times due to political pressure from the regime, while its former editor until 2019, Omar Belhouchet, has been sentenced to numerous prison terms on charges of "defamation".
 
In recent years, the newspaper has denounced the political will to deprive it of funding through the National Publishing and Advertising Agency (Anep), which has a monopoly on state advertising, after it "unilaterally" broke its contract because of its editorial line.
 
Added to this is the drop in paper newspaper sales, with circulation falling from 155,000 copies in 2010 to less than 40,000 at present, according to company figures.
 
In February, El Watan - which has a weekly supplement on the economy, real estate and television, as well as a weekend edition and several regional editions - announced that it would increase its prices from 30 to 40 dinars (from 19 to 26 euro cents) to cover its deficit.
 
"The management will continue to do everything in its power to perpetuate a newspaper that has endured so much suffering and has objectively and conscientiously reported national news and the lives of Algerians over the past 30 years," the statement said.
 
The independent daily "Liberté", also French-language and created in the 1990s, ceased publication in April after the board of directors dissolved the publishing company "for financial reasons" against the demands of its employees.

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