Algeria: HRW’s head of communication arrested, kicked out

The head of communication of the US-based Human Rights Watch was expulsed out of Algeria Sunday after his detention early this month.
Sidi M’Hamed court in Algiers charged the Moroccan journalist Ahmed Réda Benchemsi for entering the country illegally in view of rolling a foreign agenda.

Benchemsi was arrested August 9 on the sidelines of the 25th Friday of pro-democracy protests that have gripped the North African country since late February.

Security forces interrogated the rights activist and seized his phones and his computer.

Benchemsi is the second Moroccan based in the US to be expelled out Algeria since the beginning of the pro-democracy movement. In May, Abdellah Imassi, a Moroccan journalist reporting for Washington-based Al Hurra was detained and put on flight back to the U.S.