As the coronavirus began to spread in Algeria, activists from the popular movement, known as Hirak, debated whether to keep marching or whether to pivot the Hirak campaign to focus on the issue of the pandemic, the protection of the Algerian people and online campaigning. But the Hirak movement now finds itself fighting a media war with the state.

With 1,320 diagnosed cases and 152 deaths as of April 5, it seems that Algeria is in the acceleration phase of the outbreak, but the government has only been rolling out confinement region by region.

For activists in the Hirak movement — the popular movement that has mobilized people to march for change in the Algerian political system since February 2019 and pushed long-term President Abdelaziz Bouteflika to step down on April 3, 2019 — COVID-19 has presented a serious dilemma: to continue or stop marching. It raised concerns that the movement could die with the rise of the viral pandemic.

Algeria’s first COVID-19 case was diagnosed on Feb. 25, and just 16 days later, the first Algerian patient died, on March 12.