On Oct. 10, Abdelwahab Fersaoui, president of the Youth Action Rally (RAJ), a civil society organization heavily involved in Algeria's Hirak protest movement, attended a weekly sit-in as usual, in front of the Sidi Mhamed courthouse, in solidarity with Algerian prisoners of conscience. Shortly before the end of the gathering, a group of plainclothes policemen arrested Fersaoui, who after a two-day disappearance resurfaced in El Harrach prison on Oct. 12.

“We are victims of a campaign of arrests because we are an organization that has invested and contributed a lot to Hirak,” a member of RAJ’s executive board told Al-Monitor, speaking on the condition of anonymity following Fersaoui’s arrest. “Yet, RAJ is not the only target of these arbitrary arrests, but rather the civil society as a whole.”

Fersaoui's detention comes amid an upsurge of repression against prominent leaders and other activists with Hirak, including large-scale arbitrary arrests. Human rights groups and lawyers have denounced the state's actions against those participating in the popular movement sparked in February by President Abdelaziz Bouteflika’s initial decision to run for a fifth term. The escalation is taking place two months before presidential elections called for Dec. 12 by the interim president, Abdelkader Bensalah, and pushed for by the army. Bensalah stepped in as acting president in April after Bouteflika finally decided to resign under pressure.

According to the National Committee for the Liberation of the Detainees (CNLD), Algerian authorities detained at least 91 prisoners of conscience between June 21 and Oct. 15 in Algiers alone; they are being held at the El Harrach and Kolea prisons, in the capital. CNLD reports that more than 110 people are currently detained across the country. The Lawyers Collective for Change and Dignity, a group of attorneys representing some of the detainees, told Al-Monitor that the total number of detainees stands around 170.