ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) \u2014 A court in Algeria on Tuesday upheld French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
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 \u201c2084: The End of the World\u201d author was charged in March under Algeria\u2019s anti-terrorism laws and convicted of \u201cundermining national unity,\u201d receiving his initial five-year sentence then.<\/p>\n
Sansal\u2019s appeal was closely watched in both France and Algeria. It caps a saga that has turned the novelist into a unlikely cause c\u00e9l\u00e8bre, uniting francophone writers, members of France\u2019s far right and European lawmakers in a rare chorus demanding his release.<\/p>\n
The issue arose last year when, in an interview with a French right-wing media outlet, Sansal questioned Algeria\u2019s 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\u2019s parliament.<\/p>\n
The case has unfolded at a historic low point in Algeria\u2019s relations with France, which were strained further over the disputed Western Sahara. The territorial dispute has long helped shape Algeria\u2019s 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\u2019s sovereignty plan.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
Sansal\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\u201cNow that a verdict has been handed down, we can imagine that clemency measures may be taken, especially because of our compatriot\u2019s health,\u201d French Prime Minister Fran\u00e7ois Bayrou told reporters on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
France\u2019s Foreign Ministry said it \u201cdeplores\u201d the decision to sentence Sansal to prison.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis decision is both incomprehensible and unjustified,\u201d it said in a statement.<\/p>\n
The timing is dire, Sansal\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
Before his arrest, Sansal\u2019s work faced bans from Algerian authorities but he regularly travelled between Paris and Algiers without issue. His books \u2014 written in French \u2014 are little read in Algeria. <\/p>\n
However, he has amassed a large following in France for books and essays in which he regularly criticizes Algeria\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
His case has split opinion in Algeria. Many see no place for writers in prison, while others view Sansal\u2019s comments about the country\u2019s borders as a provocation and an affront to their patriotism.<\/p>\n
The arrest has brought new attention to the limits on freedom of expression in Algeria. Rights groups \u2014 including Amnesty International and Algeria\u2019s National Committee for the Liberation of Detainees \u2014 have said hundreds of journalists, activists, poets and lawyers have been detained or imprisoned for speech-related offenses in recent years. That includes many facing terrorism charges similar to Sansal\u2019s. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALGIERS, Algeria (AP) \u2014 A court in Algeria on Tuesday upheld French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal\u2019s five-year prison sentence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":230712,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5309],"tags":[90661,2741,90660,18319,30,2000,299,36,16831,19431,4179,7136,14618,263],"class_list":{"0":"post-230711","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-france","8":"tag-abdelmadjid-tebboune","9":"tag-algeria","10":"tag-algeria-government","11":"tag-censorship","12":"tag-courts","13":"tag-eu","14":"tag-europe","15":"tag-france","16":"tag-france-government","17":"tag-franois-bayrou","18":"tag-general-news","19":"tag-legal-proceedings","20":"tag-prisons","21":"tag-world-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114780957791738927","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=230711"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/230711\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/230712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=230711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=230711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=230711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}