Four Nobel Prize winners in literature: Annie Ernaux, Jean-Marie Le Clezio, Orhan Pamuk and Wole Soyinkalead a manifesto signed by dozens of writers and intellectuals, French, European and of very diverse nationalities, calling for the freedom of the French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal (75 years old) imprisoned in Algiers, days ago, and well known for his denunciations of Islam and Islamism, suspected of “threats against internal security.”
The manifesto, written by Kamel Daoud (54 years old), Algerian writer and journalist and recent Goncourt winner, begins this way: “We demand the freedom of Boualem Sansal and all the writers imprisoned for their ideas.”
After the signature of four Nobel Prize winners in literature, the manifesto has been signed by personalities such as Salman RushdiePeter Sloterdijk, Andreï Kourkov, Roberto SavianoGiuliano da Empoli, Alaa el Aswany, Sylvain Tesson, Pascal Ory, Leïla Slimani, Élisabeth Badinter, Bernard-Henri LevyCaroline Fourest, Boris Cyrulnik, Philippe Claudel, Jean-Baptiste Andrea, Jean-Christophe Rufin, Tahar Ben JellounAbnousse Shalmani or Alain Finkielkraut, among many others.
“The imprisonment of Boualem Sansal is tragic news,” states the manifesto, which adds: “It is the reflection of an alarming reality, in Algeria, where freedom of expression is a distant memory, in the face of the reality of repression and prison.” , a society committed to police surveillance.
“Everything is possible, today, in Algiers,” the manifesto continues, “life imprisonment for a telephone message, jail for a sigh of irritation.” Four Nobel Prize winners and dozens of writers and intellectuals add: «Sansal is known for his bravery in the face of the dictatorship. His innocence reminds us of the reality of State Terror. “His critical voice has been very present against oppression, injustice, and Islamist totalitarianism.”
The manifesto ends in this way: «In Algeria, writers and intellectuals, publishers, booksellers, live in fear of reprisals, accusations and arbitrary arrests, trials, defamation, physical violence against them. and their families. We cannot remain silent. At stake is freedom and the right to culture, the freedom of our lives as writers threatened by Terror.
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