A French journalist specialist in football, Christophe Gleizes, was sentenced to seven years in prison in Algeria, in particular for “apology for terrorism”, reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) and his employer, the SO Press group, said on Sunday, denouncing an “unfair” sanction. “An appeal will be taken up tomorrow, Monday, June 30,” said RSF, according to which this conviction intervened “after a judicial control of 13 months”.
According to legal sources contacted by AFP in Algeria, the journalist was led directly to the prison of Tizi Ouzou after his sentence at first instance. Once he appealed, he should be reached by but not before the next criminal session that will open in October, according to the same sources.
After being arrested and then selected under judicial supervision since May 28, 2024, he is now unjustly condemned and locked up.https: //t.co/oavesn4xoa
— SO FOOT (@sofoot) June 29, 2025
A 36 -year -old independent journalist, collaborator of So Foot and Society magazines (SO Press group), Christophe Gleizes went to Algeria in May 2024, especially for a subject on the Kabylia Sports youth club. According to RSF, he was arrested on May 28, 2024 in Tizi Ouzou and placed under judicial supervision, to “have entered the country with a tourist visa, for Apology of terrorism et possession of publications for the purpose of propaganda harming the national interest ».
“These last accusations, without foundation and completely refuted, are due to the fact that the journalist had contacts, in 2015 and 2017, with the head of the Tizi Ouzou football club, also responsible for the Kabylia self -determination movement (MAK), classified terrorist organization by the Algerian authorities in 2021,” said the press defense NGO.
The first two exchanges between the two men “took place long before this categorization by the Algerian authorities”, underlines RSF. “The only exchange that occurred in 2024 aimed at the preparation of its report on the football club, the JSK, which Christophe Gleizes never hid,” continues the NGO.
“His conviction to 7 years in prison has no meaning and demonstrates only one fact: nothing escapes the policy today and the Algerian justice has missed an important opportunity to go out from above this case,” indignant the director general of RSF, Thibaut Bruttin.
Context of diplomatic crisis
“It is important that everything is done, including politically and diplomatically, so that justice prevails and that Christophe can find his relatives and his writing,” pleaded the founder of So Press, Franck Annese, quoted in the press release.
The journalist’s condemnation intervenes in a context of acute crisis between Algeria and France, the former colonizing power (1830-1962), marked by expulsions of diplomats on both sides and a frost of all cooperation.
The quarrels broke out last summer after the recognition by French President Emmanuel Macron of a “under Moroccan sovereignty” autonomy plan for Western Sahara, a territory that Morocco and the Polisario independence has been competed for 50 years, supported by Algiers.
The situation has been won over with the arrest in mid-November of the Franco-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal, accused of having undermined “national unity” in declarations in France, where he estimated that Algeria had inherited under the French colonization of territories belonging until then to Morocco. After a sentence to five years in prison at first instance, the Verdict on appeal is to be announced next Tuesday.
