Ammar Belhimer

Journalism From 1975 to 1990, Belhimer was a journalist with the State daily El Moudjahid and one of the activists of the Movement of Algerian Journalists (1988–1990). In 1980, he was banned from activity for six months by the second Abdelghani government for having written an article reporting the sentencing of an army captain to a prison term for corruption.

After the Hamrouche law of 1990 authorized the creation of a private press, he successively founded several newspapers: the weekly La Semaine d'Algérie

Subsequently, he has been: Founder and editor of the daily Demain L'Algérie and denounces the "democratic deficit" and corruption, factors opposing any effectiveness of Algeria's economic reforms.

Academic Ammar Belhimer is a professor at the Faculty of Law of the University of Algiers

On 19 February, he reiterated his praise of the Hirak Movement. He announced as future measures a stricter framework for Algerian television and news websites, and concerning the freedom of the press, pled for "a system of responsibility that frames the exercise of this freedom" by focusing on respect for the "right to the image of others, the honor and privacy of people". He indicated that he did not envisage any financial measure to support the written press, in serious crisis: "the press support fund is no longer funded since 2015".

On 16 March, he changed his discourse and affirmed, with regard to the Hirak Movement, that "NGOs based in Geneva or London, irreducible residues of the ex-FIS and the mafia revanchists of the old system are working hard [...] to spread the slogans of civil disobedience, unrest and the use of violence".

In April, he justified, as a precaution and pending a judicial decision, the suspension of two electronic media, "Maghreb émergent" and "Radio M", declaring: "Its director is a journalist who has practiced defamation, slander, and insult, against the person of Head of state", while recalling that, concerning journalists imprisoned in Algeria, it is not his role as Minister of Communication to interfere in judicial cases for which it is appropriate to await "the results of the investigations and the final decision of the court to know the content of the case". The previous day, he had justified the decision by claiming Radio M received foreign funding, an accusation described as defamatory by the publisher of both sites.

In August 2020, Belhimer's ministry reacted to the conviction of journalist Khaled Drareni for "undermining national unity" and "inciting an unarmed gathering" after his coverage of Hirak Movement protests, stating that Drareni did not apply for an Algerian press pass or for accreditation to be a correspondent for foreign media, all of which, according to the ministry, would never be tolerated by the countries of the media concerned.

In September 2020, he told the Arabic-language newspaper El-Lika, concerning Drareni's three-year prison sentence, that "There are no prisoners of conscience in Algeria".

The resumption of the Hirak demonstrations in the spring of 2021 led to the following reaction from Belhimer on 13 April 2021: "It is no secret that some external parties are instrumentalizing this pseudo Hirak, called the new Hirak, in their war against Algeria". He also said that these parties "resort to unhealthy means, including attempting to deceive public opinion and falsify the facts, but these methods have been laid bare". Belhimer did not state what he meant more precisely.

In office since January 2020 in the communication chair, on 11 November 2021 Ammar Belhimer gave way to Mohamed Bouslimani.

Publications Books La dette extérieure de l’Algérie : une analyse critique des politiques d’emprunts et d’ajustement (Algeria's External Debt: A Critical Analysis of Borrowing and Adjustment Policies), Casbah Éditions, 1998 (in French) Une histoire de la pensée économique (A History of Economic Thought), Éditions Juris-Com, 2007 (in Arabic)