Franco-Algerian author Boualem Sansal, imprisoned in Algeria since November, has been transferred to a medical care unit in Algiers due to alarming health concerns, according to his lawyer and publisher, who are calling for his release.
Boualem Sansal, who has been detained since mid-November for "threatening state security," was transferred to a medical care unit, his publisher and lawyer in France reported on Monday.
Speaking at a solidarity event held in a Paris theater, publisher Antoine Gallimard and lawyer François Zimeray addressed several hundred attendees.
“We recently learned, just this morning, that at his request, he has been placed once again in a prison medical care unit,” stated Gallimard’s CEO from the stage. He clarified that the unit is located within a hospital in Algiers.
“This is the second time, and it was at his request. So, what can we infer? In any case, those overseeing his detention seem to have understood that his health is fragile and that his potential demise would be extremely serious—for them as well,” Gallimard added.
On December 11, during a press conference in Paris, François Zimeray condemned the transfer of Sansal—who is 80 years old—to Koléa prison, about 35 kilometers from Algiers, without prior notice to his defense team or family. “Boualem Sansal is a man who is not doing well,” Zimeray said on Monday evening.
“Boualem has just been transferred again to Mustapha Hospital, and the biopsies conducted have yielded poor results. I am issuing an appeal, and I will do so through other channels, calling on Algerian authorities to show humanity in this case,” the lawyer pleaded.
A vocal critic of the Algerian government, Sansal—author of The Barbarians’ Oath and 2084: The End of the World—was arrested at Algiers airport on November 16.
He is being prosecuted under Article 87 bis of the penal code, which classifies as “terrorist or subversive” any act that threatens state security, territorial integrity, institutional stability, or normal institutional operations.
According to the French daily Le Monde, Algerian authorities were reportedly angered by comments Sansal made to Frontières, a French far-right media outlet. In those remarks, Sansal allegedly echoed Morocco’s stance that Algeria’s territory had been artificially expanded during French colonization.
An Algiers court rejected Sansal’s request for provisional release on Wednesday, El Watan, an Algerian newspaper, reported the following day.
Several speakers, including 2024 Goncourt Prize-winning author Kamel Daoud and former French Prime Minister Bernard Cazeneuve, took to the stage on Monday evening to demand the writer’s “immediate release.”
With AFP
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