The penal code forbids anyone from insulting, or inciting hatred against, anyone who belongs to an ethnic or philosophical group or to a religion.
[4] Freedom of speech must be exercised with respect for "individual dignity, the imperatives of foreign policy, and the national defense.
"[3] Algeria uses a 1990 law to protect Islam from defamation, to control access to information from outside the country, and to outlaw writing that threatens national unity.
In 2001, the government amended some laws to criminalize writing, cartoons, and speech that insult or offend the president, the parliament, the judiciary, the armed forces, or "any other authority of public order."
Fighters on both sides conducted campaigns of torture and murder that were sometimes indiscriminate and sometimes aimed at the intellectual and educated community.
The victims included many teachers, students, journalists, writers, artists, musicians, the defenders of human rights, lawyers, civil servants, and foreigners.
In a separate incident, the Algiers appeals court on 18 November reduced the sentence of three years' imprisonment to two months of time served for three men convicted of smoking during Ramadan.
[10] In September 2007, a court in the city of Biskra sentenced 26-year-old Samia Smets to ten years imprisonment for violating the Quran.
The judge found that Smets, while in jail because of a civil matter, had accidentally dropped a copy of the Quran into water during an argument with other prisoners.