Reporters Without Borders and the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) have called on Algerian authorities to release journalist Ihsane El Kadi, director of the news outlets Radio M and Maghreb Emergent.

Radio M said El Kadi was taken into custody after six agents from Algeria’s Directorate General of Internal Security searched the offices of Radio M and Maghreb Emergent and seized computers and documents.

Radio M, an internet station, and Maghreb Emergent, its sister website, were seen as Algeria’s last outlets for independent news.

The news outlets said the arrest and search were part of a long-running intimidation and harassment campaign by authorities.

Reporters Without Borders tweeted that it “regrets these methods and calls for the release of the journalist and respect for the work of the media in the country.”

A statement by Radio M, news reports, and local journalist Mustapha Bendjama, who is familiar with the case revealed that officers brought el-Kadi to Maghreb Emergent and Radio M’s shared headquarters, confiscated computers and documents, and shuttered the outlets, according to the sources.

Bendjama and a tweet by local journalist and press freedom advocate, Khaled Drareni, also revealed that on the day of el-Kadi’s arrest, authorities ordered him to be detained for 48 hours, but was extended for additional 48 hours, on December 26.

He said up to Tuesday, December 27, el-Kadi remained at a police station in the suburbs of Algiers with no charges disclosed against him, and both outlets remained shuttered.

“By arresting journalist Ihsane el-Kadi and shutting down Radio M and Maghreb Emergent, Algerian authorities are attacking some of the last independent voices in the country,” said CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator Sherif Mansour.

“Authorities must immediately and unconditionally release el-Kadi, allow Radio M and Maghreb Emergent to resume operations, and cease their harassment of the press.”

El-Kadi on the day before his arrest discussed the likelihood of President Abdelmadjid Tebboune serving a second term in an episode of his radio program CPP, on Radio M. He also posted a tweet expressing doubt about Tebboune’s recent announcement that Algeria had recovered $20 billion dollars in an embezzlement case.