In Algeria, the writer Boualem Sansal has been in police custody for almost a week in the premises of the security services in Algiers while waiting to be presented before the public prosecutor. He risks prison sentences for “undermining national unity”.
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He hadn’t answered the phone for six days. Late yesterday, the news of Boualem Sansal’s arrest provoked strong reactions among those close to him.
Boualem Sansal, who often returns in Algeria without being worried by the authorities, was arrested in Dar El Beida, east of Algiers, a few minutes after leaving Houari Boumédiène international airport, on Saturday November 16, 2024, reports our correspondent in Algiers, Fayçal Métaoui. According to informed sources, plainclothes security agents took him out of his car and asked him to follow them.
After the interrogation period, which can last several days, the Franco-Algerian author should be presented before the public prosecutor of Algiers or Boumerdès, a town located about fifty kilometers from the capital, where Boualem Sansal resides. .
The writer’s arrest has not yet been officially announced, but, according to the same sources, the criminal proceedings against him are linked to recent statements made to the far-right French media. Borders : “ When France colonized Algeria, the entire western part of Algeria was part of Morocco: Tlemcem, Oran and even as far as Mascara. This entire region was part of the kingdom. »
Words taken up by the Moroccan media and which must not have pleased Algiers, the subject of borders remaining thorny between Algeria and Morocco. Certain separatists, supporters of Greater Morocco, are indeed eyeing this region of western Algeria, which they nickname the Eastern Sahara and which, for them, rightfully belongs to the Kingdom of Morocco.
The arrest of Boualem Sansal, naturalized French in 2024, also takes place in a context of toughening relations between Paris and Algiers. Supporters of the Polisario Front, a militant movement for the independence of Western Sahara, the Algerian authorities have not digested Emmanuel Macron’s position on the question of the former Spanish enclave. At the end of July 2024, the French president had in fact recognized the sovereignty of Morocco over this strip of land between the south of the kingdom and the north of Mauritania, thus putting an end to the French neutrality demanded by Rabat.
This winner of the Grand Prix du Novel of the French Academy is not, however, the only writer in the crosshairs of the Algerian authorities. Kamel Daoud, also a Franco-Algerian author and winner of the last Goncourt Prize, is the subject of two complaints filed in his country of origin. In a column published in the French daily Le Figarothe latter “ very much hopes that his friend Boualem Sansal will return to us very soon “.
We know what Boualem Sansal’s positions are against the Algerian regime. He has a very critical view of this regime.
Arnaud Benedetti (Political and parliamentary review)
Boualem Sansal could be prosecuted for, among other things, “undermining national unity and the territorial integrity of the country” and “inciting the division of the country”. Charges punishable by prison sentences, according to the Algerian Penal Code.
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