Algeria must release Said Riahi and stop punishing an entire family for speaking out

Read in Arabic / للقراءة بالعربية

Algerian authorities must overturn the conviction of Said Riahi and release him immediately. On 6 July 2026, a court in Ain Temouchent sentenced Riahi to 18 months in prison with a fine of 200,000 Algerian dinars over Facebook posts, prosecutors had originally sought three years. Skyline International for Human Rights calls on Algeria to end its prosecution of Riahi and to stop what has become a years long campaign against him and his brother for doing nothing more than speaking publicly about their country.

Riahi was arrested from his workplace on the evening of 9 June 2026 and held until he was brought before the public prosecutor two days later, who ordered him tried under Algeria's immediate appearance procedure and placed him in pretrial detention. His trial was held on 29 June, with the court delaying its verdict until 6 July, when the sentence was handed down.

This is not Riahi's first prosecution, and that is precisely the point. He has now been imprisoned three times for exercising his right to freedom of expression, previously convicted on charges including “insulting a constituted body” and “undermining national unity,” the same broad penal code provisions Algeria has used against government critics and Hirak activists for years. Since 2020, Algerian courts have also relied on a penal code amendment criminalizing the publication of "false news liable to harm public order," a provision carrying one to three years in prison that rights groups say has become a routine tool against online speech.

Riahi's brother, Malek Riahi, has spent even longer paying that same price. A prominent voice in Algeria's Hirak protest movement, Malek Riahi has already served two separate prison terms since 2020 over Facebook posts and public remarks, according to Algeria Watch's documentation of the case. UN Special Rapporteur Clément Voule previously raised his case directly with Algerian authorities after Malek Riahi was summoned by police and questioned about the contents of a meeting with the Rapporteur himself, conduct UN experts said violated international norms and reflected a broader pattern of reprisals against Algerians who engage with UN human rights mechanisms.

Just weeks before this verdict, Said Riahi had published a public appeal describing how prison authorities were blocking his brother from receiving a money transfer sent weeks earlier, a restriction he called arbitrary and said was being used to pressure Malek Riahi psychologically. Days later, Said Riahi himself was in a cell.

Algeria currently holds close to 260 detainees on opinion related charges, according to the Comité National pour la Libération des Détenus, which has tracked the Riahi family's case for years alongside hundreds of others swept up since the 2019 Hirak protests. Two brothers from one small city, prosecuted repeatedly, years apart, for saying things out loud that officials didn't want said, is not an anomaly in that count. It is what that count is made of.

"Algeria has turned one family's Facebook page into a years long prosecution," said Dima Samaro, Executive Director at Skyline International for Human Rights. "Said Riahi didn't threaten anyone. He posted online and asked why his brother couldn't receive money in prison."

The charges against Said Riahi and the underlying case against Malek Riahi breach Algeria's obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which Algeria ratified in 1989, specifically the right to freedom of expression under Article 19 and the right to liberty and security of person under Article 9. The apparent retaliation against Malek Riahi following his engagement with a UN Special Rapporteur also implicates Algeria's obligations to cooperate with UN human rights mechanisms without subjecting those who engage with them to reprisals.

Skyline International for Human Rights calls on the Algerian authorities to:

• Quash the conviction against Said Riahi and release him immediately, along with his brother Malek Riahi
• End the practice of denying detainees access to money transfers and other basic support sent by their families
• Stop prosecuting activists and ordinary citizens under vague public order and national interest provisions for posts made on social media
• Investigate the reported reprisals against Malek Riahi following his meeting with the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association

Skyline also calls on the UN Special Rapporteur on the rights to freedom of peaceful assembly and of association and the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention to raise both cases directly with Algeria and to press for the release of all those held in the country solely for exercising their right to free expression.