Algerian opposition figure arrested

Algerian authorities detained opposition figure Fethi Ghares on Tuesday, according to reports from his wife and the Algerian prisoners' rights group CNLD.

Ghares, who once led the now-banned leftist Democratic and Social Movement party, was apprehended by plainclothes officers at his home in Algiers, the capital.

His wife, Messaouda Cheballah, who is also active in politics, shared in a video on Facebook that the police claimed they were taking Ghares for an "interrogation" without presenting any formal summons.

She was informed that he would be taken to a nearby police station, but upon arriving there, she was told that he had not been brought in.

Authorities have yet to release an official statement regarding his detention. The incident occurs as Algeria prepares for its presidential election on September 7.

This is not Ghares's first run-in with the law. In 2021, he was arrested and later sentenced to prison on charges including insulting the president.

In January 2022, he received a two-year sentence for "harming the person of the president" and "spreading information that could damage national unity." He was released in March 2022 after his sentence was reduced on appeal.

Ghares, a prominent figure in Algeria's secular leftist opposition, was involved in the 2019 Hirak movement, a series of mass protests that led to the ousting of long-time president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. His party, the Democratic and Social Movement, which succeeded the Algerian Communist Party, was banned in February 2023.