Since his controversial, unopposed April 15 election, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has raised public hopes of ending the brutal civil strife that has plagued this North African nation for eight years. Buoyed by the president's efforts to promote national reconciliation, Algerians eagerly sought to resume their normal lives after years of bloodshed. For the country's press, the tight government censorship that marked much of the past decade is over, along with the worst of the violence. Algeria was once the most dangerous place in the world in which to practice journalism, with 58 reporters and editors murdered between 1993 and 1996. But three years have passed since the last assassination, and journalists seem more confident of their safety than at any other time since the conflict began.
Questions remain, however.
Although armed Islamist extremists are held responsible for most of the killings, Algerian journalists still suspect that the state may have been involved in some assassinations. To date, authorities have yet to prosecute anybody for killing a journalist and remain resistant to any independent international investigation into the murders. And despite his rhetoric of national reconciliation, President Bouteflika gave no indication that his government would seek to shed any light on this dark chapter in the history of the Algerian press. Prior to his abduction, Fahassi had been arrested on at least two occasions in response to his published criticisms of the government. Several days later, the leading independent newspaper El-Watan reported that he was in police custody.