GENEVA: United Nations rights experts warned Friday that a detained Algerian journalist and rights activist faced serious health risks after several weeks on hunger strike, and demanded his immediate release.
Hassan Bouras was arrested by plain-clothed security agents outside his home in El-Bayadh in northern Algeria on April 12, reportedly without a warrant or explanation, four UN special rapporteurs said in a statement.
He had been ordered into pre-trial detention on several charges, including membership of a terrorist organization.
“We are deeply concerned by the ongoing arbitrary detention of Mr. Bouras, as well as the serious risks to his life, health and physical integrity,” said the experts. They are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council but do not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself.
Bouras had been placed in solitary confinement on May 2 for launching a hunger strike to protest his detention, they said.
During the 26-day hunger strike, he had collapsed twice and developed serious health complications, but had not received adequate medical care, said the statement.
The experts described this as “a matter of acute concern given his pre-existing cardiac and respiratory conditions.
“We urge Algerian authorities to act without delay to protect Mr.Bouras’s life, health and freedom of expression. He must be granted immediate access to legal counsel and adequate medical care,” they said.
The experts stressed that Bouras’s arrest followed a pattern of judicial harassment connected with his journalistic and human rights activities.
They called for Bouras’s “immediate release and for an end to the broader pattern of harassment and prosecution of journalists and human rights defenders in Algeria.”
The experts include the special rapporteurs on protecting rights while countering terrorism and on the right to freedom of expression.
Other rights groups have also voiced concern over the situation of press freedom in the country.
Algeria ranks 145th out of 180 countries and territories on Reporters Without Borders’ 2026 World Press Freedom Index — 19 places lower than the previous year.
And in May, Amnesty International called on the Algerian authorities to “stop misusing the justice system to punish journalists solely for carrying out their work or for expressing critical or controversial opinions.”
