In February, I wrote about the detention of the prominent French-Algerian author Boualem Sansal. He was arrested upon arrival at Algiers airport in November 2024, following his earlier media statements about the colonial-era borders between Algeria and Morocco. In those comments, Sansal accused the Algerian government of ‘inventing the Polisario Front to destabilise Morocco’. In March, he was sentenced to five years in prison and fined for allegedly undermining Algeria’s territorial integrity. On 12 November President Abdelmadjid Tebboune pardoned Sansal and allowed him to leave the country, after being petitioned by French President Macron and German President Steinmeier.

Another victim of Algeria’s clampdown on dissenting voices and artistic freedom is the Algerian poet and activist Mohamed Tadjadit, who is serving one year in prison and faces additional charges in two separate cases for his online posts. Known as ‘the poet of the Hirak’, Tadjadit has endured years of harassment, arbitrary arrests and imprisonment in retaliation for the expression of his views.

Born in 1994, Tadjadit gained recognition for his powerful slam poetry, performed in Darija (Algerian Arabic) during the peaceful Hirak protest movement, which began in February 2019 to oppose the fifth term of then president Abdelaziz Bouteflika. Although Bouteflika resigned, the protesters continued to demonstrate, calling for political reforms and