Ali Dilem

Biography

Ali Dilem, or simply Dilem, born June 29, 1967 in El Harrach, Algeria, is an Algerian press cartoonist. He published his caricatures in the Algerian daily Liberté before its closure, and in the television show Kiosque de TV5 Monde on the French-speaking channel TV5, and in the French weekly Charlie Hebdo. Ali Dilem studied at the National School of Fine Arts in Algiers. After the events of October 1988, in which he participated, he began his career at the newspaper Alger républicain in 1989 then at the daily Le Matin in 1991 before joining Liberté in 1996. Dilem worked in difficult conditions during the black decade: threatened with death by Islamist groups on numerous occasions, he was also harassed by several defamation trials and accumulated 9 years in prison. On June 14, 2005, for example, he was sentenced to six months in prison for a cartoon published in the newspaper Liberté on November 29, 2001, in which he denounced the corruption of Algerian generals just after the deadly floods in Bab El-Oued. In 2001, his name was given to amendments to the Penal Code (Dilem amendments) that provide for a series of measures up to and including prison sentences against journalists who risk offending in any way the President of the Republic or the constituted bodies (army, justice, etc.). His cartoons have won nearly twenty international awards, including the International Press Cartoon Prize in 2000, the Press Freedom Trophy awarded by the Limousin Press Club and Reporters Without Borders in September 2005, the Cartoonists Rights Network’s Award for Courage in Editorial Cartooning awarded in Denver (United States) in June 2006, and the Grand Prix de l’humour vache at the International Press Cartoon and Humor Show in Saint-Just-le-Martel in September 2007. On October 11, 2010, he was awarded the insignia of Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres. Dilem is also a member of the Cartooning for Peace Foundation, founded on the initiative of the UN, which organizes exhibitions and conferences around the world. In 2014, he was named one of the world’s 100 news heroes by Reporters Without Borders. In February 2015, a month after the Charlie Hebdo attack, he joined the newspaper's team. On January 9, 2017, Dilem was promoted to the rank of Officer of Arts and Letters by the Presidency of the French Republic, 10 years after receiving the insignia of knight of the same order.