An Algerian French writer whose arrest in Algeria for allegations of undermining national unity and tensions with France was sentenced to five years in prison on Thursday.
The author, Boualem Sansal, who was born in Algeria and became a French citizen last year, was arrested in November because of statements he made in the French media that dragged Morocco into a territorial dispute with Algeria.
His detention set a scream by other authors worldwide and his condemnation came after months of applications for his freedom by French President Emmanuel Macron. France was once a colonial ruler of Algeria.
Mr Sansal was tested and convicted without access to a legal adviser, according to his lawyer in France, Francois Zimeray.
“Hard reservation, 20 minutes of listening, forbidden defense and finally five years in prison for an innocent writer,” Mr Zimeraya said in a statement. The proposal, he said, “betrays the very meaning of the word justice.”
Mr Sansal, who was diagnosed with cancer and is believed to be about 80 years old, is being held in Kolea prison, except for the capital, Algiers, according to Mr Zimeray.
“His age and state of health make it even more inhuman in prison,” the lawyer said. “I stole the president of Algeria: Justice failed, at least let humanity prevail.”
Mr Zimeray said in a text message that the next steps in the case were not clear, but that the coming weeks may be decisive. “It’s in the hands of the Algerian government,” he said.
Mr Macron repeated the feeling. Speaking to reporters in an information on Thursday, he called on Mr Sansal a “great writer” and, noting his poor health, urged his release.
“I know that I can count on the humanity of the Authorities of Algeria,” the French president said before adding: “In any case, I hope very much.”
Mr Macron has been taking a more compromise than he accused Algeria in January of frustration with Mr Sansal’s detention.
This month, Mr Sansal’s lawyer addressed the United Nations to take a stand on the issue. He called on the author’s arbitrary detention and said that he had happened in a “broader context” of the widespread refusal of freedom of expression and armament of the Algerian Justice System.
After Mr Sansal was arrested on his arrival in Algeria last year, his case imposed a conviction by French lawmakers and intellectuals, as well as writers around the world. The winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature, including Annie ErnaEX and Orhan Pamuk, as well as other well -known writers such as Salman Rushdie, joined an article by French Algerian Kamel Daoud in Le Point Newsmagazine, denouncing “Terrorism” in Algeria.
The suppression of Algerian journalists has been growing in recent years. In 2019, mass protests forced the president of Algeria from power. His replacement, Abdelmadjid Tebboune, who was elected with military support, pushed the country to the toughest authoritarianism.
Dozens of journalists are believed to have been imprisoned in Algeria, as the government has sought to prevent mass protests from diversion again, although the figures are dark given the difficulty of independent reports, experts say.
Mr Sansal has long been honest for his opposition to Islam and criticizes the Algerian government. In 2012, he denied the cash section of a prize from the Arab Ambassador Council in Paris after attending a writers festival in Jerusalem.
The statements he made led to his detention came in a particularly full time for relations between France and Algeria.
In October, Mr Macron told Moroccan legislators that he believed that the western Sahara – a matter of territorial conflict between Algeria and Morocco, a former French patron – should be under Moroccan domination, reminiscent of the Algerians.
Mr Sansal also said that Algeria benefited from the French colonialism because it acquired ground in the western Sahara that once belonged to the Kingdom of Morocco.
Mr Sansal, who worked as an engineer of the Algerian government, published his first book, “The Oath of the Barbarians”, in 1999.
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