Reporter Sans Frontieres (RSF), also known as Reporters Without Borders, announced Sunday that Algerian media mogul Ihsane El Kadi had his prison sentence extended to seven years by the Algerian Court of Appeal. The ruling comes a month after a court sentenced El Kadi to five years in prison and ordered his media company dissolved. El Kadi’s company, Interface Médias, managed both Radio M and Maghreb Émergent.

RSF representative Khaled Drareni condemned the increased sentence, saying, “The conviction of Ihsane El Kadi is surreal. It is the product of judicial harassment against a journalist who fought to freely exercise his profession in a context of generalized political lockdown.”

Amna Guellali, a representative for Amnesty International, also condemned the ruling: “El Kadi’s unjustified detention by the Algerian authorities… is yet another example of their ruthless campaign to silence voices of dissent through arbitrary detention and the closure of media outlets.”

El Kadi was convicted of violating Article 95 bis of the Algerian Penal Code, which prohibits the receipt of funding from a foreign entity if to “incite… acts likely to undermine the security of the State.”

El Kadi’s lawyer, Me Zoubida Assoul, has denied the charges, claiming there is no proof El Kadi received funds from any foreign organization or state. Assoul went on to say that “Neither the investigating judge nor the court judge examined the exculpatory evidence provided by the defense.”

According to the Cairo Institute for Human Rights (CIHRS), El Kadi’s arrest came directly after he published an article that postulated the military may not endorse current Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune in his re-election campaign.

Many prominent journalists and public figures have called for El Kadi’s release, including Noam Chomsky, Achille Mbembe, Arundhati Roy and Ken Loach.

According to RSF’s World Press Freedom Index, Algeria is ranked 136 out of 180 countries in overall press freedom, a two-point drop since 2022.