Omar Belhouchet

Omar Belhouchet (; born 9 February 1954 in Sétif

Journalism Belhouchet received a degree in economics from the University of Algiers, and first went to work for Algérie Presse Service. He moved as a journalist to El Moudjahid, the government-established newspaper of the FLN. In 1990, he left the paper to found the independent El Watan. He reported being threatened by Islamic militants more than 100 times. According to the New York Times, he has "narrowly escaped" two assassination attempts. One of these attempts occurred in 1993, when an assailant fired a machine gun at his car while he was driving his children to school; Belhouchet escaped by dropping low in the seat and gunning the accelerator. Islamist militants were suspected to be responsible.

Belhouchet lost a defamation suit in 2008 to a faith healer that he and El Watan reporter Salima Tlemçani had alleged to be a fraud; both were imprisoned for three months. In 2009, Reporters Without Borders issued a protest on Belhouchet's behalf after judicial police reportedly summoned him for interrogation on defamation charges fourteen times in the space of a few weeks.

International recognition Belhouchet's work has received praise, awards, and support from numerous press freedom organizations. In 1993, he won the International Press Freedom Award of the committee to Protect Journalists, and the following year, he won the annual press freedom prize of the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers. He has also won the Maghreb Liberty Prize, the Golden Pen of Freedom Award of the World Association of Newspapers, the Rob Bakker Memorial Award in 1997, and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Human Rights Award in 1998. In 2000, the International Press Institute selected him as one of 50 World Press Freedom Heroes of the past half-century.

When UNESCO Director-General Federico Mayor protested one of Belhouchet's arrests, he also praised Belhouchet as "a journalist known for his professional competence and his devotion to press freedom".