As Algeria Prepares for Legislative Elections, Authorities Crack Down on Dissent

PARIS - Protests banned and political activists and journalists detained. Lawyers and judges reprimanded or otherwise targeted, ostensibly for their ties to a grassroots protest movement demanding profound political change.  

As Algeria readies for legislative elections this month, the government is tightening its grip, rights groups and others say, with a raft of detentions and even prison sentences against its rainbow of critics. In the capital, Algiers, and other cities, authorities have effectively banned weekly demonstrations organized by the two-year-old Hirak protest movement, largely by placing administrative hurdles.   If today the government crackdown gives its leaders a tenuous upper hand, it risks backfiring in the longer term, experts warn, further dampening an anticipated low voter turnout in the June 12 parliamentary vote, deepening the country's social and economic crisis and fueling new support for the Hirak movement.   "There's a fundamental contradiction," said Brahim Oumansour, North Africa specialist at the Paris-based French Institute of International Relations think tank. "Authorities are searching for political legitimacy through the elections, but paradoxically this repressive policy contributes to perpetuating the crisis."