Control of suspect websites in Algeria

[Al-khiyal]

في إطار مكافحة الجريمة الإلكترونية بعد أن تحوّلت الأنترنت إلى أداة تحريض
قانون لتجريم الاشتراك في المواقع الجهادية
تهمة الإشادة بالإرهاب تلاحق باعة أشرطة الأناشيد ''الجهادية'' التحريضية

كشفت مصادر موثوقة لـ''الخبر'' عن مشروع قانون يجري الإعداد له سيعرض مستقبلا للتصويت عليه في البرلمان، وتتضمن مسودته، حسب ما تسرب لـ''الخبر''، جملة من العقوبات ضد الأشخاص الذين يترددون على المواقع ''الجهادية'' بهدف الإشادة بالإرهاب وتمجيده أو الدعوة للانضمام إلى التنظيمات الإرهابية.

الإشكال الذي كان سببا في الفراغ القانوني وعائقا دون صدور نصوص جديدة تعاقب الأشخاص الذين يشيدون بالإرهاب أو يجندون الشباب باسم ''الجهاد'' عبر الشبكة العنكبوتية، يتلخص في عدم توفر أدوات الجريمة الكافية للإدانة، ما يعيق القضاة على إيجاد المادة الصريحة التي تحدد الجريمة والعقوبة المناسبة لها سيما، بالنسبة للأشخاص الذين يترددون على المواقع ''الجهادية'' بدافع الفضول وبنية الإدانة من خلال آرائهم المعادية لدعاة ''الجهاد'' والممجدين له.

وحسب المعلومات المتوفرة، فإن مشروع القانون الذي يجري تحضيره بإشراك كل الجهات المعنية يخص المشاركين في المنتديات ''الجهادية'' وأعضاء المواقع الإلكترونية التابعة للتنظيمات الإرهابية الذين يتأكد تورطهم في الإشادة بالإرهاب والتحريض عليه، أو الانتماء للتنظيمات الإرهابية عبر الأنترنت والتواصل معها أو التواصل بغرض الالتحاق بالتنظيمات الإرهابية.

ولم تتحدد بعد طبيعة الإجراءات التي تقع على كاهل الأشخاص الذين يترددون على المواقع والمنتديات الإرهابية خطأ أو فضولا أو لدواع مهنية كالإعلاميين المهتمين بشؤون الجماعات الإرهابية، والسعي من وراء زيارة المواقع المذكورة للحصول على المادة الإعلامية أو المختصين الاجتماعيين الذين يعدون مذكرات وكتب لتشريح الفكر الذي يدعو إليه هؤلاء ودراسة الظاهرة من الناحية الاجتماعية والنفسية، وكذلك الأئمة الذين يزورون تلك المواقع بهدف معرفة السند الديني لهؤلاء في الدعوة للجهاد وإقامة الحجة عليهم بالآية والحديث في الخطب وتكذيب مزاعمهم.

من جهة أخرى فإن مصادر ''الخبر'' ترى بأن السلطة التقديرية التي تعود للقاضي في تطبيق النصوص القانونية التي يرتقب صدورها تسبقها الإجراءات الوقائية لمصالح الأمن باختلافها التي تلعب الدور التوعوي بالنسبة لمرتادي المواقع الإرهابية فضولا أو عن حسن نية. أما بالنسبة لمن يزورون أو يشتركون فيها لدواع مهنية، فإن الجهات الأمنية التي تراقب العناوين الإلكترونية لأجهزة الكمبيوتر الشخصية تفرق بين كل حالة.

وعلى صعيد آخر، يواجه باعة الأشرطة الدينية والأناشيد تهمة الإشادة بالإرهاب والتحريض.. وهي أناشيد تعرض الحائز عليها والمتاجر بها إلى العقوبات المعروفة. وتضمنت آخر دراسة أعدت بخصوص الأناشيد التحريضية التي دونت في قائمة سوداء حوالي 300 أنشودة دينية.

وعلى صعيد آخر، أكد وزير تكنولوجيات الاتصال، بن حمادي موسى، في تصريح لـ''الخبر'' أن برنامج القطاع الذي أعلن عنه قبل 3 أشهر بخصوص حجب المواقع الإباحية على الأطفال جار بخطى متسارعة، ويتم تجسيده ميدانيا قبل نهاية السنة، وتم بهذا الخصوص اقتناء البرامج اللازمة وسيدخل حيز التنفيذ مع بداية .2011

[Al-khiyal]

Physicists protest colleague's terrorism detention

November 8, 2010 -- Adlène Hicheur, a high-energy physicist who has worked on the world's largest particle collider, has been held in a French prison under suspicion of terrorism for more than a year. Now, his colleagues are publicly protesting what they describe as his Kafkaesque detention. In a letter to the French Physical Society, 19 physicists say that they are deeply concerned about Hicheur, a 33-year-old French-Algerian who until his arrest was a postdoctoral researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (EPFL) and worked on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland. Signatories to the letter include Jack Steinberger, winner of the 1988 Nobel Prize in Physics, who works at CERN. "The research career of Adlène, even in the case that he is publically (sic) demonstrated to be innocent of all charges, is greatly endangered by the length and the arbitrariness of the procedure," the group writes.

Hicheur was arrested on 8 October 2009 at his family's home in the southern French town of Vienne. According to press reports, he was suspected of plotting terrorism attacks with 'Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb' — the North African branch of the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda. From the beginning, colleagues have had their doubts about the case. "I think he is innocent," says Jean-Pierre Lees, deputy director of the Laboratory of Particle Physics in Annecy-Le-Vieux, France, who worked with Hicheur when the postdoc was a graduate student and helped to organize the letter. Lees says that, in the days after the arrest, he had kept quiet at the request of Hicheur's family and lawyer, who told him that any noise could slow Hicheur's release. But little has changed over the past year. Hicheur has remained incarcerated in Fresnes Prison near Paris while prosecutors gather evidence. Presiding judges have denied repeated requests for his provisional release until the trial, on the grounds that his communications and movements should be strictly guarded, says Dominique Beyreuther-Minkov, Hicheur's lawyer. The case remains open, with no firm date for either a trial or a formal indictment. "My opinion is that it is an empty case," says Beyreuther-Minkov, before adding that she can't discuss further details, owing to strict secrecy laws surrounding French legal proceedings. The office of Christophe Teissier, the anti-terrorism judge who is presiding over the case, declined to comment, citing the ongoing investigation.

Those who worked with Hicheur also have deep doubts over the accusations. Lees describes Hicheur as a shy but affable scientist who loved political debate. Olivier Schneider, a physicist at EPFL who worked with Hicheur and signed the letter, says that the young man was a brilliant researcher whose job was to model magnetic fields inside the LHCb detector, one of four giant detectors at the collider. Schneider describes his colleague as quiet but "rather normal", and says that he is increasingly distressed by Hicheur's prolonged detention. "After a year, either they have some proof and he should be judged or they have no proof and he should be released," says Schneider. Lees says that he decided to organize the letter in Hicheur's defence because he was one of the few who knew the French-Algerian physicist well. "If I don't speak, very few people will," he says, "and this could last forever."

[Al-khiyal]

Physicist’s jailing is veiled in mystery

March 15, 2011 -- When Adlène Hicheur, a French-Algerian physicist working on antimatter at CERN’s enormous particle collider outside Geneva, was arrested on October 8, 2009, on suspicion of conspiring with an Algerian branch of Al Qaeda, fears of doomsday plots rippled through the tabloid press. CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, felt obliged to reassure the public that Dr. Hicheur did not have access to anything dangerous and that antimatter bombs as featured in the Dan Brown novel Angels and Demons were for all practical purposes flights of fancy.

Last fall, the Swiss government closed its investigation of Dr. Hicheur, saying it had found no evidence of wrongdoing, but in France, Dr. Hicheur’s detention was extended. Last month, it was extended again, by four months. Press officers for France’s interior minister, Claude Guéant, did not respond to telephone and e-mail requests for comment on the case. So, more than 500 days after his arrest, Dr. Hicheur, now 34, remains in preventive detention in a Paris prison without having been charged with any crime. Nor, say his lawyers and his family, has any evidence been produced that he did anything more than browse Islamic political Web sites. No trial has been scheduled.

After months of silence, Dr. Hicheur’s family and colleagues have recently begun to speak out, urging his release. The issue, they say, is a simple matter of human rights. The long incarceration has turned Dr. Hicheur’s life into a Kafka novel, they say, and is endangering his physical and mental health, as well as his career and his family. Dr. Hicheur walks with a cane because of a herniated disk that was aggravated by his arrest and initial interrogation, his family said. Recently he was beaten up by another inmate in the Fresnes prison, his lawyer says. What physics news he gets comes by regular mail during the three visits a week he is allowed with colleagues and family members, in a room that one visitor described as barely bigger than a phone booth.

“Somebody who is in prison without a charge, this is against all international laws,” said Michael Dittmar, a CERN physicist and leader of a lab group known as the ConCERNed for Humanity club, which discussed Dr. Hicheur’s plight at a recent meeting. “It’s shocking how a person can disappear.” Under French law, a person suspected of terrorist connections can be held in “provisional detention” for up to four years, depending on the nature of the alleged offense, without being charged or tried. Dr. Hicheur could be detained for up to two years, according to his lawyer, Dominique Beyreuther-Minkov. “He’s losing hope to be released some day,” said Jean-Pierre Lees, a professor at the Laboratory of Particle Physics in Annecy-le-Vieux, France, where Dr. Hicheur earned his Ph.D. Dr. Lees has organized an international support committee. “Personally, I don’t believe he did anything wrong,” Dr. Lees said. “He went on the Internet, chatting in a forum. The police tried to build a picture of a potential terrorist, but discussion does not make you a terrorist.”

Nearly 100 scientists, including Jack Steinberger of CERN, winner of a Nobel Prize in Physics, signed a letter to the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, in December. They wrote, “It seems to us that there is no justification for the prolonged detention, of almost 14 months so far, of Dr. Adlène Hicheur, an internationally recognized scientist, held in much esteem by his colleagues.” The unusual thing about Dr. Hicheur’s case, say his friends and supporters, is that it is happening to a scientist. At CERN, where the pursuit of nature’s secrets traditionally takes place in a setting free of national or ethnic tensions, Dr. Hicheur’s situation has come as a shock, said Maurizio Pierini, a CERN physicist. “The reality of the international situation came to us with some violence, while we were thinking we were not too much a part of it,” he said in an e-mail. “And we were quite unprepared.” As an international organization, CERN cannot become involved in legal proceedings of its member states, the laboratory’s spokesman, James Gillies, said by e-mail.

Family and friends describe Dr. Hicheur as an observant Muslim and a shy but genial colleague and friend. His brother Halim Hicheur, a physiology researcher in Grenoble, France, called him “a good guy” and said he was the kind of “theorist who just wants to understand.” Dr. Hicheur was born in Sétif, Algeria, one of six children of a mason and a homemaker. When he was 1, the family moved to Vienne, France. He and his siblings were first drawn to science in high school because it allowed the most flexibility in college, Halim Hicheur said by e-mail. “We then, my brother and myself, graduated and became really passionate about science,” he said, “first enjoying thinking about the origins of the universe, and myself being more attracted by life science — by the brain in fact!”

Dr. Hicheur has spent his professional life trying to understand the difference between matter and antimatter, to explain why the universe is made of matter and antimatter. He has been the author or co-author of more than 100 papers. After obtaining his Ph.D. under Dr. Lees at the Annecy laboratory, for work done partly at the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory at Stanford, Dr. Hicheur worked at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory in Britain and then joined the Laboratory for High Energy Physics at the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland. There, he is part of a team that operates LHCb, one of the giant particle detectors on CERN’s Large Hadron Collider. Dr. Hicheur was arrested at his parents’ apartment in Vienne just as he was about to travel to Sétif to meet with a contractor about building a house on land he had recently bought there, and for which he had transferred about $18,000 to Algeria, his brother said. He was also planning to meet with physicists at the University of Sétif as part of a long-range goal to establish research collaborations with physicists in Algeria.

According to news reports, Dr. Hicheur had been under surveillance for a year and had been in Internet contact with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate. Shortly after the arrest, a French police official told Le Monde that Dr. Hicheur had planned to attack a military base in Annecy that is home to an elite force that had recently left for Afghanistan. The French authorities have been silent ever since. Dr. Hicheur’s lawyer, Ms. Beyreuther-Minkov, said she had petitioned for his release at least 15 times and was taking the case to France’s Supreme Court. “I feel like David facing Goliath,” she said by e-mail, “but everybody knows the end of the story.”