A British-Algerian journalist died Sunday 3, months into a hunger strike to protest a two-12 months prison period for offending Algeria’s president in a poem published online, his attorney stated. “I can verify the demise of the journalist Mohamed Tamalt in Bab el-Oued hospital after a starvation strike of greater than three months and a 3-month coma,” Amine Sidhoum stated on Facebook.
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In an announcement, the jail carrier stated Tamale had died of lung contamination for which he was receiving treatment because it was detected on December 4. A twin national, Tamale, released the hunger strike in protest after his arrest close to his mother and father’s house in the capital, Algiers, on June 27. The 42-yr-vintage blogger and freelance journalist who ran a website from London in which he lived was charged with “offending” President Abdelaziz Bouteflika and “defaming a public authority” inside the poem shared on Facebook.
A courtroom in Algiers sentenced his years in prison on July 11 and fined him 200,000 dinars ($1,800), and an appeals court upheld the ruling a month later, Soul Crazy. Human Rights Watch had advised the Algerian government to launch him in August while he was reportedly in vital condition. “The Algerian government should quash the case towards Tamale and ship the message that free speech will be reputable in Algeria,” it stated at the time.
