Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

An Algerian court has sentenced historian Mohamed Amine Belghit to five years in prison for offending national symbols, his lawyer said on Facebook, Thursday, after remarks questioning the existence of the native Amazigh culture. According to AFP, in a recent interview, Belghit sparked outrage in the North African country when he said that "the Amazigh language is an ideological project of Franco-Zionist origin", and that "there's no such thing as Amazigh culture". Algeria in 2016 granted official status to Tamazight, the language of the Amazigh people, who are also known as Berbers.