PARIS: A prominent French sports journalist sentenced to seven years in prison in Algeria at the end of June is in “fighting mood” but feels “isolated,” his parents told AFP after visiting their son earlier this month.
Christophe Gleizes, who is being held in the city of Tizi Ouzou, is being detained against the background of escalating political tensions between Paris and its former north African colony.
“Even if his morale is high, even if he is in fighting mood, he feels completely cut off from the world, isolated,” his mother, Sylvie Godard, told AFP in an interview at the Paris offices of media rights campaigners Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Along with his stepfather, Francis, she is calling for the case of her son, the only French journalist currently detained abroad, not to be used to “settle political scores” between France and Algeria.
Gleizes, who specializes in African football and contributes to the top-selling So Foot magazine, was convicted in Algeria of “glorifying terrorism,” a charge his parents said was “totally absurd.”
