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FIFA accredits French journalist detained in Algeria: RSF
FIFA has issued World Cup accreditation to French sports journalist Christophe Gleizes, who has been detained in Algeria for a year, Reporters Without Borders told AFP on Wednesday.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF), which coordinates a support committee for Gleizes, hailed the move as "a strong show of support" from world football's governing body ahead of the World Cup, which kicks off on Thursday.
The accreditation, issued to journalists covering the tournament, "is a reminder that the rightful place of this sports journalist and football specialist is not in prison, but in the stadiums and behind the scenes of this major global competition", RSF head Thibaut Bruttin said in a statement.
Gleizes, 37, was arrested in May 2024 while travelling to northeastern Algeria's Kabylia region to write about the country's most decorated football club, JSK.
He was sentenced in June last year to seven years in jail for "glorifying terrorism" after being convicted of having contact with members of the Movement for the Self-Determination of Kabylie (MAK), a foreign-based group that Algiers has designated a terrorist organisation.
"This never-ending situation has left us devastated," his parents, Sylvie and Francis Godard, said in the statement.
Expressing their "gratitude" to FIFA, they reiterated their appeal for "clemency" from Algerian President Abdelmadjid Tebboune.
The Godards visited Gleizes in detention last week, telling AFP he was "being treated well, but he feels increasingly isolated from the outside world".
The accreditation authorises Gleizes to cover the entire World Cup, held in the United States, Canada and Mexico from June 11 to July 19, for the magazine So Foot.
His prison sentence, handed down at the height of a diplomatic crisis between France and Algeria, was upheld on appeal in December.
In March, Gleizes withdrew an appeal to the Supreme Court, in the hope of paving the way for a presidential pardon.
The path was further cleared on June 3 when the journalist's lawyers announced Algeria's highest court of appeal had rejected an appeal from prosecutors for a tougher sentence, removing the last obstacle to a possible pardon.
Algeria traditionally issues pardons during major religious and national holidays, including on July 5, the day marking the independence of the North African country from French colonial rule in 1962.
A. Walsh--BTZ
