Ghanem was accused at the criminal court in Oran last month of insulting the president, with the prosecution demanding an 18-month prison sentence and a 30,000 dirham (280 euro) fine.
The complaint was filed by his own employer, pro-regime daily La Voix de l?Oranie (Voice of the Oran Region), for a drawing that was to appear in the newspaper on September 30, 2013 but which was never published.
The cartoonist, Djamel Ghanem’s, own newspaper filed a complaint for a cartoon he drew that never ran in the paper. Talk about censorship.