“This brings us back to the debate about what we have the right to listen to,” political activist Jalal Saadouni comments on the recent ban on “vile songs” Algerian Ministry of Culture.

Instructions were sent to all departments of the ministry, including festivals and copyright offices, regarding the songs, “encourage violence and crime” So what “to mislead all categories of society, and especially young people, sowing vulgarity, perversion and other vices.”

Morality of public life

The department claims that its instructions are in line with “legal regulations that take care not to sanction anything that is contrary to the values ​​and intangible foundations of Algerian society, as well as a law that prohibits contempt of good morals and everything that is contrary [à] identity and authenticity [nationale]”.

And to explain that it is about cultivating artistic taste and educating young people in mature citizenship, in the service of the country and the obligations of President Abdelmajid Tebbun in favor of the morality of public life.

Jalal Saadouni associates himself with the Hirak movement, who protested the reappointment of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika for a fifth term in 2019.

He lives in Bordj Bou Arrerij Governorate. [en Petite Kabylie]who was one of the strongholds of this mobilization, and remembers that “Young people sang songs and slogans that reflected their everyday reality, marked by drugs, illegal immigration and other things that are now forbidden to be mentioned in