The writer Boalem Sansal, arrested in Algeria, declares himself on a hunger strike despite cancer

Franco-Argeline writer, BOLEM SANSAL, He has already completed 100 days imprisoned in an Algerian prison. The Algerian authorities arrested him in November under accusations of terrorism and subversion against the State. Sansal has declared a hunger strike without an forecast to put it on even though he suffers from cancer.

A Court of Appeal of Algiers already denied the request for release submitted by its three Algerian lawyers. The novelist’s arrest has fueled the TDiplomatic deeds between France and Algeria in which even President Emmanuel Macron had to interfere to transfer his support “unwavering for the freedom of a great writer and intellectual.”

Sansal’s lawyer has expressed concern about his state of health also due to the fact that he suffers from cancer, which is being treated, according to François Zimeray. “It’s a cancer that hits men at a certain age”commented in his interview on the public radio France Inter. The lawyer, hired by the publishing house where Sansal works, has revealed that it is not known which is the exact age of the essayist, in the official documents it appears that he is 75 years old, but he may have 80.

Zimeray denounced that he could not talk to his client because Algeria is denying that he works with him and that for that reason he had declared himself in hunger strike. The French Interior Minister Bruno Retailleau has denounced on Monday that “those who locked him arbitrarily, who deprived him of care and visits, dishonor Algeria.”

The manifestations of Sansal, which is declared atheist, have led Algerian to make the decision to imprison him and Do not give any trial date. The French newspaper ‘Le Figaro’ published an open letter from an support group of the writer to ask Macron to “cease her constant benevolence” to Algeria