Lounès Matoub

On 18 July 2011, two men, Malik Madjnoun and Abdelhakim Chenoui, were convicted of killing Matoub, and sentenced to 12 years in jail. The one-day trial was suspended twice when Matoub's family interrupted to insist the suspects were innocent. As Madjnoun and Chenoui had been in prison awaiting trial since 1999, they were released in 2012, having served their time.

On 25 June 1998, at approximately 12:30 pm local time, Matoub's car was stopped at a roadblock while he was driving along a mountainous road in eastern Algeria (Kabylia). The car was fired upon by masked gunmen, killing Matoub and wounding his wife, Nadia Matoub, and two sisters-in-law. Within hours, news of Matoub's murder had spread throughout Kabylia and thousands of angry mourners gathered around the hospital where his body was taken. The crowd shouted "Pouvoir, Assassin" ("Government, Assassins"). A week of violent riots followed his death. Young demonstrators clashed with riot police and attacked government property. On 28 June 1998 tens of thousands people attended his funeral in front of his house in his native village. He was buried between a fig tree and a cherry tree, opposite the house he was born in. Matoub's family played a scathing parody of the Algerian national anthem, which came from Matoub's final album Lettre ouverte aux... ("Open letter to..."), released after his death (Gold-Disc). Matoub's assassination occurred a week before a law excluding languages other than Arabic from public life was due to come into effect. Matoub had been an outspoken critic of this law.

On 30 June 1998 the GIA claimed responsibility for the assassination of Matoub.

During the civil war, which began in 1992, the Islamist Armed Islamic Group added his name to a hitlist of artists and intellectuals. Matoub remained in Algeria. On 25 September 1994, he was abducted. He was held for two weeks in a GIA mountain stronghold and condemned to death. He was released following a large public demonstration in which his supporters threatened "total war" on the Islamists.

In 1994, he published his autobiography entitled Rebelle (Paris: Stock, 1995).

During the riots in October 1988, Matoub was shot five times by a policeman and left for dead. He was hospitalised for two years, requiring 17 surgeries, including the insertion of an artificial scrotum and the contraction of his leg by 5 cm (2.0 in). His 1989 album L'Ironie du sort describes his long convalescence.

Matoub began his singing career under the patronage of the established singer Idir. He recorded his first album Ay Izem (The Lion) in 1978; it was a phenomenal success. He went on to record 36 albums, as well as writing songs for other artists. He gave his first major concert in April 1980, at the time of the "Berber Spring" protest movement in Kabylia.

Lounès Matoub (Kabyle: Lwennas Meɛṭub; Arabic: معطوب الوناس) (January 24, 1956 – June 25, 1998) was an Algerian Kabylian singer, poet, thinker who sparked an intellectual revolution, and mandole player who was an advocate of the Berber cause, human rights, and secularism in Algeria throughout his life.

Lounes Matoub was born on 24 January 1956 in the village of Taourirt Moussa in Algerian Kabylia. When he turned 9, he built his first guitar from an empty car oil can and composed his first songs as a teenager. His political and cultural identity was awakened by armed confrontations between Kabylians and government forces in 1963–1964. In 1968, the Algerian government introduced a policy of Arabization in the education system. Matoub reacted by skipping school; his memoirs recall: "We had to give up Berber and reject French. I said no! I played hooky in all my Arabic classes. Every class that I missed was an act of resistance, a slice of liberty conquered. My rejection was voluntary and purposeful." By 1975, he had abandoned formal education. He left for France in search of work.