TUNIS: Algerian police shut down a book signing by sociologist Fatma Oussedik and temporarily closed the bookstore slated to host it, her publisher said on Sunday, calling the incident "as incomprehensible as it is illegal".
The Koukou Editions publishing house said police on Saturday seized copies of the book, whose title translates to "Rebellious Identities: Rethinking One's Own History", and shut the Beaux-Arts bookstore in Algiers for a month.
The book was "the fruit of several years of field research on the history and sociology of the M'zab Valley", a Berber-speaking region in Algeria, Koukou director Arezki Ait-Larbi said in a statement.
He said that police, tax officials and culture ministry representatives visited the bookstore two days before the signing to demand the event's cancellation, then returned on Saturday morning, prompting the shop to put off the event.
Nonetheless, the authorities came back in the afternoon to seize the copies and shutter the store.
