In a victory for human rights, 81-year-old prize-winning Algerian novelist Boualem Sansal was released from imprisonment Nov. 12 and flown to a hospital in Germany where he is being treated for prostate cancer.
Sansal’s release by Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune came after growing pressure from writers, artists and civil libertarians worldwide. Tebboune said he granted a humanitarian pardon after an appeal from German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier.
Sansal was arrested in November 2024 at the Algiers airport returning from France. In March he was convicted and sentenced under Algeria’s repressive anti-terrorism laws to five years in prison for “undermining national unity” and insulting public institutions.
Sansal is longtime and outspoken critic of Algerian government authoritarianism, Islamic fundamentalism and government attacks on freedom of expression. His arrest came after giving an interview where he argued that under colonial rule the French rulers had redrawn Algeria’s borders to include land that belongs to Morocco.
Tebboune was elected with military support in 2019 after a political movement of hundreds of thousands forced the resignation of then President Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Tebboune has led a crackdown on debate and dissent with hundreds arrested.
Sansal’s first book, The Oath of the Barbarians, published in 1999, revealed corruption and brutality in the government’s military suppression of an Islamist revolt that began in 1992, and resulted in as many as 150,000 people killed.
In July 2012 Sansal received an Arab Novel Prize awarded in France for Rue Darwin (Darwin Street). But the prize money was revoked under pressure from opponents of Israel’s right to exist, citing Sansal’s participation in the Jerusalem International Writers Festival in Israel. Hamas said he had “committed an act of treason against the Palestinian people.” Hamas “is a terrorist movement of the worst kind,” Sansal responded. “Hamas has taken Gazans hostage. It has taken Islam hostage.”
Sansal’s latest book, 2084: The End of the World, won the Academie Francaise’s Grand Prize in 2015. A modern take on George Orwell’s novel 1984, it describes a postapocalyptic extremist caliphate where anyone who criticizes the regime is disappeared.
Continued repression
An appeal by well-known Algerian novelist Kamel Dauoud, Salman Rushdie, Annie Ernaux, Wole Soyinka and many others called for his release. PEN America joined the call, denouncing the “climate of fear and repression” in Algeria.
While Sansal was released, the regime has continued to repress writers and artists the rulers consider political opponents. On Nov. 12, Mohamed Tadjadit, a 31-year-old Algerian poet, was sentenced to five years in prison. A former fruit street vendor, he became well-known during the anti-government protests in Algeria in 2019.
Tadjadit has been detained at least six times for his writings and participating in peaceful protests. “A homeland oppressed, dishonored,” is how one of his poems describes Algeria. “They placed justice under money’s weight. And made freedom forbidden.”
Amnesty International, PEN America and 18 other prominent organizations have circulated a statement calling for his freedom.