Algeria's state prosecutor is demanding four years of prison for independent journalist Khaled Drareni. Drareni was arrested in the capital Algiers last March and has been kept in detention ever since. His trial opened on Aug. 3 and sentencing is expected in a week. Two activists are standing trial together with Drareni. Apart from imprisonment, the three also face heavy fines and being stripped of their civic rights.

Drareni, 40, has been working over the past few years for several media outlets, including the French TV Channel TV5 Monde. He has also run the local Sabah Tribune and served as correspondent for the global press freedom group Reporters Without Borders. He was very active on Twitter, with 146,00 followers. For the last year and a half he has been focusing on the demonstrations that led to the toppling of Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika in April 2019 and the demonstrations that followed against the replacing regime. The marches and demonstrations, organized by the Hirak movement, only came to a halt in March due to the coronavirus crisis.

The saga of his arrest started on March 7 this year. Drareni and two others — Slimane Hamitouche and Samir Benlarbi — were detained by the police while participating at a demonstration in Algiers. Three days later they were brought before the state prosecutor. Drareni was placed under judicial review, while a detention warrant was issued for his two colleagues.  

On March 25, a judge in Algiers charged him with "inciting an unarmed gathering" and undermining the nation's "territorial integrity," both charges he denied. According to people close to him, Drareni was aware of the risks, but decided not to flee. His last tweet dates from that day: "The Algiers Chambers confirms the detention warrants submitted against Samir Benlarbi and Slimane Hamitouche, and the judicial review submitted against me," Drareni wrote in Arabic and in French.