Six months in prison: Boualem Sansal must not be forgotten!

Six months ago today, on November 16, 2024, the Algerian novelist and Peace Prize laureate Boualem Sansal was arrested at the airport in Algiers and sentenced to five years in prison at the end of March - for simply expressing his opinion. In an interview, he is said to have questioned Algeria's borders. Both the writer, who suffers from cancer, and the public prosecutor's office, which had demanded a ten-year prison sentence, filed an appeal. The date for the trial has yet to be set.

Boualem Sansal's supporters - Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels, Merlin Verlag, Perlentaucher, PEN Germany and PEN Berlin - are calling on the new German government to support Boualem Sansal's release. They insist that his statements are covered by freedom of expression and that his imprisonment and trial therefore have no legal basis.

The members of the Peace Prize Board of Trustees draw attention to Sansal's intolerable situation: "The Peace Prize laureate Boualem Sansal is a world-class writer who is committed to understanding, peace and democracy in his work and activities. The Algerian state has no right to deny him this and deprive him of his freedom."

Alongside numerous Nobel Prize winners, Peace Prize laureates and their laudators, the members of the Board of Trustees are among the first signatories of an appeal for Boualem Sansal's release, which has since been signed by more than two thousand people, mainly from the book industry. The appeal  can still be signed on the Peace Prize website Further information on Boualem Sansal's imprisonment can also be found here.