Overview
- The Franco‑Algerian writer, arrested in Algiers nearly a year ago, is serving a five‑year sentence on charges including undermining national unity and holding materials deemed threatening to state security.
- Committee members say they received very recent, worrying updates about his condition and describe detention that bars visits, phone access, and contact with other inmates.
- Noëlle Lenoir says the incommunicado regime amounts to ill‑treatment under international standards and notes uncertainty over whether any hospital transfer has been permitted.
- Arnaud Benedetti says consular protection and access for a French lawyer have been refused, and that months of quiet French diplomacy have yielded no progress on release.
- A National Assembly vote in Paris challenging the 1968 Franco‑Algerian accords forms a tense backdrop, though the support committee declines to tie that development to his case.