If Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi needs pointers in how to deal with the wildly popular TV satirist Bassem Youssef — who was charged last week with insulting the President and mocking Islam — he might find them in a nearby North African country: Algeria. There, the autocratic regime of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and his powerful military generals have suffered years of vicious skewering by one of the region's best-known cartoonists, Ali Dilem. But after countless attempts at shutting down Dilem's work, Algeria's government seems to have come to the conclusion that Dilem cannot be halted, or at least, that stopping him would be too damaging for the country's image. "Even the judges know that it is not a good time for them to go after me," Dilem says. He says the government's tacit rule now is: "You can talk, you can shout, so long as you don't risk the country's stability." (PHOTOS: Ali Dilem's Controversial Political Cartoons) For Dilem, 45, it is a delicate dance. He has been prosecuted at least 50 times over the past 11 years for insulting Algeria's leaders — an offense that came into law in 2001, when Bouteflika signed the so-called Dilem amendment, allowing for sentences of up to 12 months in jail and 250,000 dinars ($3,177) fines for journalists who insult the President and military generals. Since those insults are the core of Dilem's cartoons, he has been charged repeatedly under the provision. His sentences are invariably reduced on appeal, and Dilem has so far not been jailed, despite his merciless put-downs of the country's most powerful figures. The Algerian newspaper Liberté, which publishes his work, pays his legal fees. Asked how many times he has been convicted, Dilems laughs. "That's an easy question," he says. "I have never won a case." Dilem's cartoons also draw a wide audience online, with their depictions of pumped-up dictators and corrupt generals resonating strongly in the rest of the Middle East. No one's feelings, no matter how powerful the person, are spared in his drawings. Bouteflika is(http://stats.wordpress.com/b.gif?host=world.time.com&blog=19871253&post=80743&subd=timeglobalspin&ref=&feed=1)
Via: TIME GlobalSpin
I don't want to be in the presenter's shoes right about now cos it's a very bad experience. He would wish he never did that