Algeria frees Boualem Sansal after belatedly realizing the truth is not a crime!

After months of unjustly detaining Algerian activist Boualem Sansal, the authorities released him—a step described as a clumsy retreat rather than a correction of a mistake.

Sansal, who did nothing but state aloud what everyone knows - that the Algerian regime holds onto Moroccan lands granted to it by French colonialism - found himself behind bars, simply because he decided to be an honest citizen in an era where hypocrites have successively occupied the podiums of official media.

But what is more ironic than the injustice itself is the manner in which the man was released. The pardon was not a "humanitarian impulse" from the authorities, nor a "national awakening of conscience," but rather the result of pleas from Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune to Germany to intervene with Paris to ease the pressure on him after the exchange of messages with French President Emmanuel Macron on the occasion of Algeria's National Day.

It is as if Algeria no longer knows the path to dignity except through international mediation, and does not know how to make a decision unless authorized by someone abroad.

The Sansal case was a mirror reflecting a troubled political situation: A regime that raises the slogan of "sovereignty" while living on European diplomatic life support, and boasts of "independence" while begging for intercession from Berlin and Paris simultaneously!

Therefore, Sansal's release came in a context larger than just a freedom of speech case. After the recent slap from the United Nations Security Council, which once again affirmed that the Moroccan autonomy plan is the realistic and sole solution to the Sahara issue, Algeria has begun to completely lose its political balance. It tried to pressure France using the card of memory and history, but instead received low blows from the Élysée, sending it into a spiral of silence and confusion.

The result: A regime that has lost its compass, releasing detainees based on diplomatic ringing tones, not democratic consciousness. It sends supplicating messages to Europe to be described as "flexible" and "cooperative," after it previously threatened it with the rhetoric of the liberation revolution, which no longer convinces even schoolchildren.

What Boualem Sansal said - that Algeria retains Moroccan lands seized by French colonialism and handed to it on a silver platter - is not a secret, nor is it treason. It is a documented geographical and historical truth, found in maps and treaties. But in Tebboune's Algeria, the truth is considered a crime if it comes from the mouth of a free person who does not chant the regime's praises.

Today, now that the authorities have released Sansal, they have no right to boast of a "presidential pardon" or a "legal review." Rather, they must apologize - yes, apologize -first to their own people, and second, to those they have wronged in the name of "false patriotism."

What happened is not a victory for justice, but a defeat for the political arrogance that led Algeria to believe it could hide the sun with a sieve of propaganda.

As for Morocco, it watches from afar this pitiful scene: The scene of a regime pardoning a citizen who told the truth, while it intensifies its conspiracies against its neighbors and buries itself in the sands of an illusion called "self-determination."

Algeria has indeed awoken from its slumber, but it is too late. The world has changed,
Morocco has progressed, and the Sahara is Moroccan, whether some like it or not.

The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Middle East Online.