Today, Thursday, July 9, the Secretary-General of the Workers’ Party, Louisa Hanoun, appeared before the Misdemeanor Court in Sidi M’hamed in Algiers, on charges of defamation and insult directed at a public body, brought against her by the Minister of National Education, Mohamed Saghir Saadawi, against the backdrop of her statements regarding his support for legislative candidates.
Hanoun’s appearance before the court was by “direct assignment,” which is the procedure chosen by the defense team of the Minister of Education. Considering that it was the first session, and at the request of the defense team of the accused Hanoun, the judge decided to postpone the trial until July 15 of this month.
The Secretary-General of the Workers’ Party, Louisa Hanoune, had recently confirmed in her statements that the Minister of National Education, Mohamed Saghir Saadawi, had filed a lawsuit against her by direct summons, on charges of defamation.
Hanoun said that the complaint filed by Saadawi was in his personal capacity, and not in the name of the state or the Ministry of National Education, against the backdrop of statements she made that concerned him personally. She explained that she received an official summons from a judicial report in the middle of last June.
Hanoun denied the accusations against her, stressing that she was subjected to a campaign that targeted her, and that she responded to it within the political framework, without resorting to what she described as “bullying” or similar methods that were prevalent in the past.
The details of the case go back to the beginning of last June, when the Secretary-General of the Labor Party accused the Minister of Education of supporting two candidates in the legislative elections, considering that this constitutes a violation of the law.
Hanoun said, at the time, that “the Minister of Education, during a meeting with officials of 38 unions, including candidates, gave, according to her, instructions to support two candidates, considering that this represents a violation of the law, a serious deviation, and an infringement on freedom of choice.”
She stressed that the “education sector and its unions are not a political party and that the minister is not the head of a political party in order to direct the union ranks to vote in favor of a candidate or list, stressing that he does not have any authority to do so and that the matter requires taking the necessary measures.”
It is noteworthy that the accusations made by Louisa Hanoune were not proven, nor were the union officials who participated in the meeting talking about them, and the Minister of National Education, Mohamed Saghir Saadawi, did not issue any response regarding the accusations made against him by the Secretary General of the Workers’ Party or regarding the lawsuit that she announced until now.
