By Boualem Sansal–From El Harash prison, Algiers

My friends,

If this letter reaches you, it is because despite the walls, locks and fear, there are still breaches through which the truth can sneak. I am writing to you from a cell where air is scarce, where light only enters to remind prisoners that they are still alive, but never free.

I am neither the first nor the last to suffer the arbitrariness of the Algerian regime. Here, the prison is not an exceptional place reserved for criminals, but a banal tool of governance. The dictatorship locks up how we breathe: without effort, without shame. We lock up journalists, activists, writers… and sometimes even those who have said nothing, just to serve as an example.

My fault? Having persisted in believing that words could save this country from its own demons. Having written that Algeria is not limited to a flag and an anthem, but that it is first and foremost a people who deserve dignity and justice. Having refused that history repeats itself, that corruption and violence continue to hold the top of the pavement.

I suffer, yes. My body betrays me, the disease nibbles my strength, and the Algerian regime hopes that I will die in silence. But, it is wrong ! My voice, even chained, does not belong to it. If this letter can still reach the outside, it is to say this: do not believe in their facade of respectability. This regime is not a state, it is a grinding machine.

I am writing to France without detour. You have been my second homeland, my intellectual refuge. You who proclaim yourself the homeland of human rights, remember that these rights do not stop at the shores of the Mediterranean. Governments pass, diplomacies calculate, but the principles must stand. Do not give up, do not sacrifice your values on the altar of economic interests or alliances of circumstance.

I do not ask for my freedom out of charity, but in the name of what is the foundation of all human society: justice. If you give in today to a regime that believes it is untouchable, tomorrow, other prisons will fill up, other voices will die out.

To the Algerians, my brothers and sisters, I say: hold on. Fear is a larger prison than the one where I am, and it is more difficult to break. But I know that one day, the wall will fall. The dictators always end up falling.

As for me, I will continue to write, even if my pages remain hidden under this prison mattress. Because writing is the only freedom they cannot confiscate, and it is through it that we will survive.