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Algerian authorities have sentenced Christophe Gleizes, a prominent French sports journalist specializing in African football, to seven years in prison for “glorifying terrorism” and “possessing publications for propaganda purposes harmful to national interests.”
Media rights watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) decried the verdict as “nonsensical.”
Gleizes, 36, who contributes to So Foot magazine, received the immediate incarceration order from a court in Tizi Ouzou.
He plans to appeal the ruling on Monday.
RSF stated he was “unjustly convicted and imprisoned for simply doing his job.”
Legal sources confirmed Gleizes was taken to Tizi Oouzou prison directly after his conviction.
His appeal case is expected to be heard in October at the earliest.
Gleizes, co-author of a book on African football, was arrested in May 2024 and subsequently placed under judicial control, preventing him from leaving Algeria.
RSF’s Director General, Thibaut Bruttin, called Gleizes’s year-long judicial control “absurd” and the seven-year sentence “nonsensical,” suggesting it demonstrates how “nothing escapes politics” today.
Gleizes traveled to Tizi Ouzou to report on the local football club Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie, located in Algeria’s Kabylia region.
The region is home to the Berber Kabyle people.
His family expressed shock, stating, “There is no justification for Christophe having to endure this ordeal.”
“How can one justify punishing a journalist for practicing his profession with integrity?”
The “terrorism” charges stem from Gleizes’s contact in 2015 and 2017 with a Tizi Ouzou football figure linked to the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK).
Algerian authorities designated MAK a “terrorist” organization in 2021.
RSF noted that the initial interactions predated this designation and that Gleizes did not conceal contacting the individual again in 2024 for his report.
So Foot echoed the dismay, stating, “Imprisoned for doing his job! His loved ones and editorial team are in shock.”
Gleizes’s jailing occurs amid rising tensions between Algeria and France, its former colonial power.
In November, Algeria arrested and jailed French-Algerian writer Boualem Sansal on national security charges, defying calls for his release from French President Emmanuel Macron.
Macron had also angered Algiers in July 2024 by backing Moroccan sovereignty over the disputed Western Sahara.
