RSF calls for release of French reporter Christophe Gleizes, detained in Algeria

Christophe Glaise is still in a prison cell in Algeria. This is the 500th day of his incarceration. He was arrested while reporting on a football club, JSK, that stands for Jeunesse Sportive de Kabylie, and has become a rallying point for Kabyle calls for greater self-determination or even independence. But it's not linked to the Kabyle groups opposed to the rule of Algiers over their historical territory. Glaise was convicted of sympathizing with terrorism. He was in Tizi Ouzou in 2024, researching an article, and he had contact with a former JSK man who today is part of the MAK, or the Movement for Self-Determination of Kabylie. The MAK, M-A-K, has been designated as a terror group by Algiers since 2021. So is this just a big misunderstanding? Christophe Glaise's arrest and conviction came at a time of crisis between Algiers and Paris. Jean-Noël Barrot, the French foreign minister, hosted the Glaise family in Paris this Wednesday. Let's take a look. Christophe Glaise's parents pour over photos from happier days, when their son was still a free man. The 37-year-old sports journalist has been detained in Algeria for a year and four months. 500 jours. 500 days. It's staggering. To be released from prison, he must be granted a pardon by the Algerian president, a prospect that a source close to the case is not optimistic about. This is a major asset for Algeria. You don't just give up an asset like that. In May 2024, Christophe Glaise was reporting on the Tizi Ouzou football club when he was arrested, accused of carrying out journalistic work while on a tourist visa and of having met a football club official suspected of belonging to a terrorist organization. He was tried and sentenced to seven years in prison for glorifying terrorism. A source close to the matter believes his release may depend on the outcome of the French presidential election. They know that bilateral relations will become strained if the National Rally comes to power. Christophe will serve as a bargaining chip. He's trying to fix... France and Algeria are resolving diplomatic tensions at the expense of a sports journalist. Christophe has nothing to do with any of this. It has nothing to do with all this. What is hard... The hardest thing about this ordeal that we're going through is that there's no end in sight. Glaise finds himself at the centre of a political row between France and Algeria. For its part, Algeria is angry because one of its intelligence agents is being held in France. He's accused of having abducted seven political opponents who had sought refuge in the country, including a well-known opponent of the Algerian regime. President Tebboune may be seeking a prisoner swap, but according to a high-ranking diplomat, that is out of the question. We will not bargain for Christophe Glez's release. The Algerians think that by detaining him, they will get this or that. But we cannot draw parallels that do not exist. He's a pawn in a complicated game. Behind it all, the person is suffering and so is his family. Every morning... When we can't sleep, we think of him. So we're taking action for him. Whenever possible, Glaze's parents travel to Algeria to visit their son in prison. They can speak to him for just 30 minutes. Through a telephone intercom and separated by a glass partition. When a journalist goes about his or her normal duties, they don't really expect to end up in jail. When you go to do a sports report, maybe in particular it seems all the more shocking. Thibaut Broutin joins us. He's Director General of Reporters Sans Frontières, Reporters Without Borders, Paris-based, but of course... Pressure Group, an NGO which has its eyes worldwide on media freedom. Thibaut, pleasure to see you as always. And these circumstances for the Glaze family, one can only imagine how difficult it is and how much they're going through. How much of a concern do you have about the situation of Christophe Glaze today? So Christophe is seeing his family, he has visits in jail from the consul of France and from From the the cardinal of Algiers, so that's how we get first-hand account of how he's doing. But what matters, I would say, is the amount of information we're getting about about, you know, what could be the next steps. The next steps in a campaign that is led publicly by RSF and its support committee in a campaign that also involves the French diplomacy. And I'm concerned. That's why we decided to organize this 500 days celebration, because we do not see an outcome anytime soon. There is no prospect of a pardon being granted in the coming weeks if we take the diplomatic sources that we have. This is a man, Christophe Glaze, who is basically going about doing a sports report about a well-known soccer club, which competes in all the big competitions in the African scale, JSK. They're a well-known club. This isn't some strange club which has some weird link to some kind of revolutionary deal. It is a proper bona fide football organization. So he's going about his duty. He gets arrested and is charged with something he denies. And there seems to be scant evidence that... He was actually taking part in anything that he's been accused of doing. Is the French government doing enough? Is the Foreign Office doing enough, Thibault, to try to bring about his release? I'd love to think so, and you might have seen some of the talking points we've used today, which are, you know, very clear about the fact that we expect the current government, the current president, to bring Christophe back home. Not to be, you know, brought back to France, but brought back to his family. Certainly. Christophe is just a collateral victim of a very difficult relationship between France and Algeria, and that has to come to an end. In terms of what Christophe did, can you give us any more details to sort of flesh out precisely what his mission was about there? I mean, clearly he was in an area which has a separatist angle to it. But, you know, you can look at JSK, the football club, perhaps in the same way that you might look at Barcelona, which is a kind of focal point for Catalan independence. Is JSK any more, any more, I don't know, dangerous a place to be than Barcelona FC? No, it is not, obviously, and it is clear as well that the second trial, the appeal trial, was the opportunity for him to express what he was doing. He was on duty from his newspaper to try and interview a trainer to try and get a sense of what happened in the deaths of the journalists in the 1990s. And on top of that, He was trying to research the killing of a JSK player in 2010, so a series of reports. The question of his alleged contacts with the MAC members is just an excuse to get him to jail. The file that the government of Algeria claims to have on him is empty, and that has been very obvious in the appeal trial a few months back. So great concerns about why Christophe Glaize is still being held in prison in Algiers, 500 days as you say. Does RSF have any concerns about the issue of press freedom in Algeria across the board? Are journalists there allowed to go about their business as we would hope they could? Oh no definitely not. Algeria is not a beacon of press freedom in any way. The press is being muzzled. We've seen repeated cases of harassment, legal harassment of journalists and there is a firm grip of the power on the news media. That's why there is so much interest as well from international press because they want to know what's going on in this very important country of Africa. And the truth is that any time we've had similar issues of a French journalist or a foreign journalist being arrested in Algeria, most of the time the matter is solved in a few days with an expulsion from Algeria. Being expelled from Algeria is unfortunately fairly common for reporters which are not granted a journalistic visa. Why then is this one taking so long, Thibaut? Can you give us some insight or your thoughts on why he is still there? Well, it's a question you should ask to the Algerian authorities, and we're putting it, you know, in a straightforward way. Why is it taking so long to take him out of jail, to pardon him? You know, if he was just a guy that was taken by the Algerian justice Thank you. and sentenced for nothing, they would have released him earlier. The thing is that it's probably a token in a diplomatic game that we don't totally understand, that we don't totally master, up to the point where we are asking ourselves, has he become a state hostage? This is a shocking question for all the Algerian authorities, but this is a question we need an answer to. And the more time he spends in jail, the more we feel that he is an hostage. Thibaut Broutin, Director General of Reporters Sans Frontières, Reporters Without Borders, thank you for joining us. Please, if you can, and you're able to, pass on our best wishes to the Glaise family and to Christophe if you can get word to him there in prison in Algiers. And thank you for joining us here in France 24 and sharing what you know about this case with the rest of the world. We can hope for the correct outcome very soon. And thanks again to Thibaut Broutin of Reporters Without Borders.