Kristenn Einarsson, Chair of the IPA’s Freedom to Publish Committee said: IPA is extremely concerned at the reports of the arrest of the award-winning Algerian-French author Boualem Sansal in Algeria, and increasingly alarmed at the situation in that country after the recent banning of French publisher Gallimard from the Algiers International Book Fair because of their publishing another Algerian author, Kamel Daoud. We appeal to the Algerian authorities to release Boualem Sansal, a champion of freedom of expression.
IPA’s German member, the Börsenverein des Deutschen Buchhandels also issued a joint statement with Sansal’s German publisher, Merlin, calling for his release.