ALGERIA / ARAV warns against religious radicalism on television

On November 29^th the Autorité de Régulation de l’Audiovisuel (ARAV), the Algerian broadcasting watchdog, published a statement addressed to television stations.

Zouaoui Benhamadi, Chairman of ARAV

In it the Authority gives a warning to public and private television stations which broadcast religious programmes on their channels: broadcasting institutions “are strongly advised…at risk of sanctions, to use extreme vigilance to ban from local or imported programmes any intolerance or hatred likely to sow or feed any form of extremism.” The statement added that “broadcasting religious ideas can degenerate into obscurantism and verbal exchanges whose violence encourages instability, discord and social divide.”

In mid-November the ARAV had organized meetings with Bouabdellah Ghlamallah, chairman of the Islamic High Council, and Mohamed Aïssa, Minister of Religious Affairs and Wakfs. As a result of their discussions, the Authority set up an in-house “platform for reflection to draw up a set of guiding principles, capable of enforcing this shared desire to defend an Islam in harmony with our history and our culture, in the name of social cohesion and national unity.”

Created by the Algerian government last June and chaired by journalist Zouaoui Benhamadi, ARAV consists of nine members appointed by presidential decree for a single term of 6 years. In July ARAV published a list of specifications for private channels operating in Algeria, and within the next few weeks it will launch a call for tenders to approve new channels and compel those already operating to comply with these specifications.

Sources: Algérie Focus, Le Matin d’Algérie, El Watan