LA France was informed of the program, by the Algerian justice, of two international arrest warrants against the Franco-Algerian writer Kamel Daoud, said on Wednesday the spokesman for the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, confirming information from Point.
“We follow and we will follow the evolution of this situation carefully”, added Christophe Lemoine, stressing that Daoud was “A recognized and respected author” And that France was attached to freedom of expression.
last November, an Algerian court had accepted a first complaint against the writer and his psychiatrist for having revealed and used the story of a patient for the writing of her novel HourisPrix Goncourt 2024, the most prestigious reward in French literature.
Two appeals had then been filed against Daoud and his wife, who treated Saâda Arbane, a survivor of a massacre during the black decade of civil war in Algeria (1992-2002, 200,000 dead).
A complaint comes from Arbane, who accuses them of having used his history without his consent, and another of the national organization of the victims of terrorism.
The issue of an arrest warrant is part of the usage procedure according to the Algerian Criminal Procedure Code.
“If the accused is on the run or if he resides outside the territory of the Republic”, The investigating judge may issue an international arrest warrant, according to the law governing this case.
Learning to be targeted by these arrest warrants, the writer indicated by the voice of his lawyer that he was going to challenge them with Interpol.
Camel Daou “Has also just been informed, without further details, that two arrest warrants were issued against him by the Algerian justice”, reacted Me Jacqueline Laffont-Haïk, requested by AFP.
“The motivations of such Algerian mandates could only be political and register in a set of procedures carried out to silence a writer whose last novel evokes the massacres of the dark decade in Algeria”, deplored the lawyer.
“A request will therefore be filed without delay to the Interpol file control commission (CCF) to oppose the dissemination of these manifestly abusive arrest mandates”, she said.
Houris, Who designates in the Muslim faith young girls promised in paradise, is a dark novel taking place partly in Oran on the destiny of Aube, a young silent woman since an Islamist decided her throat on December 31, 1999.
He cannot be published in Algeria, because he falls under a law prohibiting any work on the dark decade between 1992 and 2002, which left at least 200,000 dead, according to official figures.
The novel is also the subject of proceedings before French justice: the writer was assigned to fail to comply with private life by Saâda Arbane.
A first hearing was held on Wednesday before the Paris court in this civil affair.
Daoud had affirmed in mid-December on France Inter that this story was “Public” in Algeria, but also that his novel “Don’t tell (the) life” of arbane.
His publisher Gallimard had denounced the “Violent orchestrated defamatory campaigns (against the writer) by certain media close to a regime of which no one ignores nature”.
