Algerian police confiscated journalist Mohamed Benchicou’s new manuscript, The Journal a Free Man, from a printing plant in Blida, south of Algiers. In a statement posted on several news Web sites, Benchicou said security forces raided the printer and ordered the director to cease the printing job. The raid came a few days before Algeria held an International Book Fair on October 27-November 5, 2008.
Benchicou, former publisher of the French-language daily Le Matin, served two years in jail for allegedly violating the country’s currency laws in 2003. He was released in June 2006.