Latest news with #Algerie
France 24
05-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal won't appeal sentence, hopes for pardon
French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal will not appeal his five-year prison sentence to Algeria 's supreme court, said sources close to the author on Saturday, adding that they remain hopeful for a pardon. The 80-year-old dual national writer was sentenced to five years behind bars on March 27 on charges related to undermining Algeria's territorial integrity over comments made to a French media outlet. On July 1, an Algerian appeals court upheld the sentence. "According to our information, he will not appeal to the supreme court," the president of the author's support committee, Noëlle Lenoir, told broadcaster France Inter on Saturday. "Moreover, given the state of the justice system in Algeria ... he has no chance of having his offence reclassified on appeal," the former European affairs minister said. "This means that the sentence is final." Sources close to Sansal told AFP that the writer had "given up his right to appeal". His French lawyer, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, declined to comment when contacted by AFP. France's prime minister François Bayrou said earlier this week that he hoped Algeria would pardon the author, whose family has highlighted his treatment for prostate cancer. But Sansal was not among the thousands pardoned by Algeria's president on Friday, the eve of the country's independence day. "We believe he will be released. It is impossible for Algeria to take responsibility for his death in prison," Lenoir said, adding she was "remaining hopeful". A prize-winning figure in North African modern francophone literature, Sansal is known for his criticism of Algerian authorities as well as of Islamists. The case against him arose after he told the far-right outlet Frontières that France had unjustly transferred Moroccan territory to Algeria during the colonial period from 1830 to 1962 – a claim Algeria views as a challenge to its sovereignty and that aligns with longstanding Moroccan territorial assertions. Sansal was detained in November 2024 upon arrival at Algiers airport. On March 27, a court in Dar El Beida sentenced him to a five-year prison term and fined him 500,000 Algerian dinars ($3,730). Appearing in court without legal counsel on June 24, Sansal said the case against him "makes no sense" as "the Algerian constitution guarantees freedom of expression and conscience". The writer's conviction has further strained tense France-Algeria relations, which have been complicated by issues such as migration and France's recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a disputed territory claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
France 24
05-07-2025
- Politics
- France 24
French writer jailed in Algeria won't appeal, still hopeful of pardon: supporters
The 80-year-old dual national writer was sentenced to five years behind bars on March 27 on charges related to undermining Algeria's territorial integrity over comments made to a French media outlet. "According to our information, he will not appeal to the supreme court," the president of the author's support committee, Noelle Lenoir, told broadcaster France Inter on Saturday. "Moreover, given the state of the justice system in has no chance of having his offence reclassified on appeal," the former European affairs minister said. "This means that the sentence is final." Sources close to Sansal told AFP that the writer had "given up his right to appeal". His French lawyer, Pierre Cornut-Gentille, declined to comment when contacted by AFP. France's prime minister Francois Bayrou said earlier this week that he hoped Algeria would pardon the author, whose family has highlighted his treatment for prostate cancer. But Sansal was not among the thousands pardoned by Algeria's president on Friday, the eve of the country's independence day. "We believe he will be released. It is impossible for Algeria to take responsibility for his death in prison," Lenoir said, adding she was "remaining hopeful". A prize-winning figure in North African modern francophone literature, Sansal is known for his criticism of Algerian authorities as well as of Islamists. The case against him arose after he told the far-right outlet Frontieres that France had unjustly transferred Moroccan territory to Algeria during the colonial period from 1830 to 1962 -- a claim Algeria views as a challenge to its sovereignty and that aligns with longstanding Moroccan territorial assertions. Sansal was detained in November 2024 upon arrival at Algiers airport. On March 27, a court in Dar El Beida sentenced him to a five-year prison term and fined him 500,000 Algerian dinars ($3,730). Appearing in court without legal counsel on June 24, Sansal said the case against him "makes no sense" as "the Algerian constitution guarantees freedom of expression and conscience". The writer's conviction has further strained tense France-Algeria relations, which have been complicated by issues such as migration and France's recognition of Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, a disputed territory claimed by the Algeria-backed Polisario Front.
Washington Post
04-07-2025
- Sport
- Washington Post
Family of French journalist sentenced in Algeria pleads for help from soccer great Zidane
PARIS — The family of a French sports journalist who has been sentenced to seven years in prison in Algeria is calling for help from the sporting world and soccer great Zinédine Zidane. Christophe Gleizes, a 36-year-old freelance sportswriter, was sentenced last week over an interview with a soccer official accused of ties to a banned separatist movement, in a case rights groups say criminalizes routine reporting.
Arab News
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Arab News
Algerian court upholds writer's 5-year sentence in a case that's strained relations with France
ALGIERS: A court in Algeria on Tuesday upheld French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal's five-year prison sentence in a case that has raised alarm over freedom of expression in Algeria and pushed tensions with France to the brink. The ruling denies a request made by prosecutors at an appeal hearing last week. They asked a judge to give Sansal the maximum penalty of 10 years in prison. The '2084: The End of the World' author was charged in March under Algeria's anti-terrorism laws and convicted of 'undermining national unity,' receiving his initial five-year sentence then. Before his arrest, Sansal's work faced bans from Algerian authorities but he regularly traveled between Paris and Algiers without issue. His books — written in French — are little read in Algeria. Sansal's appeal was closely watched in both France and Algeria. It caps a saga that has turned the novelist into a unlikely cause célèbre, uniting francophone writers, members of France's far right and European lawmakers in a rare chorus demanding his release. The issue arose last year when, in an interview with a French right-wing media outlet, Sansal questioned Algeria's current borders, arguing that France had redrawn them during the colonial period to include lands that once belonged to Morocco. The 80-year-old dual citizen was arrested the following month and later lambasted by the president in a speech to Algeria's parliament. The case has unfolded at a historic low point in Algeria's relations with France, which were strained further over the disputed Western Sahara. The territorial dispute has long helped shape Algeria's foreign policy, with its backing of the Polisario Front, a pro-independence group that operates out of refugee camps in southwestern Algeria. France angered Algeria last year shifted its longstanding position to back regional rival Morocco's sovereignty plan. Analysts say that Sansal has become collateral damage in the broader diplomatic fallout and describe the charges as a political lever Algiers is deploying against Paris. Sansal's supporters hope military-backed President Abdelmadjid Tebboune will grant a pardon on Saturday, when Algeria marks Independence Day and traditionally frees selected prisoners as part of a national amnesty. 'Now that a verdict has been handed down, we can imagine that clemency measures may be taken, especially because of our compatriot's health,' French Prime Minister François Bayrou told reporters on Tuesday. France's Foreign Ministry said it 'deplores' the decision to sentence Sansal to prison. 'This decision is both incomprehensible and unjustified,' it said in a statement. The timing is dire, Sansal's supporters in France and Algeria warn, as he battles prostate cancer and has spent part of his detention in a prison hospital. He appeared in court on Tuesday looking frail and without his trademark ponytail. Before his arrest, Sansal's work faced bans from Algerian authorities but he regularly traveled between Paris and Algiers without issue. His books — written in French — are little read in Algeria. However, he has amassed a large following in France for books and essays in which he regularly criticizes Algeria's leaders after 1962, when it won independence from French colonial rule, and the role of Islam in society. Under the imprint of the prestigious French publishing house Gallimard, he has published 10 novels and won a prize for the best novel of the year, the Grand Prix du Roman, in 2015.
BBC News
01-07-2025
- Politics
- BBC News
Algeria sentences French sports journalist sentenced to seven years' imprisonment
French journalists' unions on Tuesday called on Algeria to release a French football writer who has been jailed for seven years for supporting Gleizes, who is 36, was sentenced on Sunday, after being found guilty of holding exchanges with a proponent of self-determination for Algeria's Kabyle journalist, who specialises in African football for the Paris-based So Foot magazine, travelled to Algeria in May 2024 for an article on the well-known club JSK (Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie) based in Tizi Ouzou, some 100km (62 miles) from the capital Algiers. He was detained a few days later in Tizi Ouzou and for the last 13 months has been under a form of limited freedom, unable to leave the country and obliged to report regularly to advice from French diplomats, his family and fellow journalists kept his plight under wraps pending the result of the trial."The imprisonment of a journalist for carrying out his profession is a red line that must never be crossed. Christophe Gleizes must be given back his freedom, his family and his writing," journalists' representatives from around 40 different French media said in a statement."Nothing can justify the ordeal that Christophe is going through now," his family said. "In all his writing he showed a passionate interest in the lives of African footballers. Is this his reward?"Gleizes's case recalls that of French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, who has been in jail since being arrested at Algiers airport in November last Tuesday an appeals court in Algiers confirmed the five-year prison sentence handed down in March, after Sansal's conviction for breaking state security writer, who is 80 and suffers from cancer, was found to have "threatened national unity" in an interview he gave to a rightwing French website in which he questioned the official Algerian account of its pre-independence the appeals court sentence, French prime minister Francois Bayrou expressed the hope that President Abdelmadjid Tebboune would use the occasion of Algeria's 63rd independence anniversary on Saturday to grant a pardon to the Gleizes case, the foreign ministry in Paris said Tuesday it "regretted the heavy sentence" imposed on the journalist, but fell short of calling for his between the two countries have been on a knife-edge for the last year, since President Emmanuel Macron appeared to shift France's position on north Africa towards greater support for Algeria's historic rival then there has been a series of diplomatic rows, with tit-for-tat expulsions and a breakdown of cooperation over extradition and of Sansal say he is in effect a hostage, and is being used by the Algerian government to put pressure on says he was convicted following due process of the employer Franck Annese, founder of So Press media group, described him as a "super guy, enthusiastic, willing, and full of humour.""He has absolutely no political axe to grind. His interviews and articles prove it."According to Mr Annese, Gleizes "fell in love" with African football when he investigated the death in 2014 of Albert Ebossé, a Cameroonian forward who died after being struck on the head by a projectile while playing for led to his co-authoring a book – Magic System: Modern Slavery of African footballers – which strongly criticised the agents who "exploit the confidence and dreams of these young players."According to the campaigning group Reporters without Borders (RSF), in researching his article on JSK Gleizes had contacted an exiled Kabyle opposition figure who was once an influential figure at the football person is now leader of the Movement for Self-Determination of Kabylia (MAK), RSF 2021 MAK was proscribed as terrorist by the Algerian government. Gleizes's supporters contend that two of the journalist's three exchanges with the opposition figure took place before the MAK was banned; and that all the exchanges concerned football, not politics.
