Writer Boualem Sansal imprisoned in Algeria

He had no longer given any news to his loved ones since his arrival in Algiers last Saturday November 16, according to information from Marianne. According to his relatives, the writer Boualem Sansal was arrested by the police and imprisoned by the regime.

Aged 75, the author of 2084: the end of the world (2015, Gallimard) obtained French nationality this year.

Critical of the Algerian political system, threatened by Islamists, Boualem Sansal has always refused to bend under pressure from Algiers. “ In Algeria, everything was locked down », he affirmed to Marianne in an interview. Despite the censorship of his works, he continued to travel regularly to his country.

Turn of the screw?

For several years, the Algerian government has had its sights set on writers from Algeria who use freedom of expression too strongly according to the regime.

READ ALSO: Kamel Daoud: “For them, I am not a real Algerian because I do not meet their criterion: hatred of France”

On November 4, the Goncourt Prize was awarded to the Algerian writer and columnist in Marianne Kamel Daoud, for his novel Houris. A first in the history of Algerian literature. Rather than welcoming this, Algeria launched legal proceedings against him, accusing him in particular, through a survivor of the civil war who says she was dispossessed of her personal history by Kamel Daoud, of “defamation of victims of terrorism and violation of the law on national reconciliation”. Indeed, article 46 of the “Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation” condemns anyone who speaks freely about the civil war in the media.

Before the complaints, Kamel Daoud – who has always been supported by Boualem Sansal – and his publisher Gallimard had been banned from staying in the country. Due to this ban, they were unable to attend the Algiers Book Fair.