ALGIERS: An Algerian blogger has appealed against a 10-year prison term, his lawyer said on Sunday, after global rights groups condemned the severity of the sentence.
Merzoug Touati was convicted on Thursday of providing intelligence to "agents of a foreign power" likely to damage Algeria, by a court in Bejaia, east of Algiers. The 30-year-old blogger submitted his appeal the following day and was feeling "optimistic", his lawyer Boubakeur Esseddik Hamaili said.
"I have seen my client, he is doing well and is a tower of strength. He proclaims his innocence as he has done nothing but exercise his rights guaranteed by the constitution," the lawyer added.
Touati has been in prison since his arrest in January 2017, over an online video interview with an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman and a Facebook post in which he called for protests against a new financial law.
During his trial the court dropped three additional charges including incitement against the state, which his lawyer said carries the death sentence. The 10-year jail term was described us "utterly shocking" by Amnesty International, which said Touati had been convicted "solely for expressing his peaceful opinion online".
The boost for Harris came amid new turmoil for 78-year-old Trump, who cast into doubt whether he will debate the vice...
“It was, unfortunately, a bullet that hit my ear, and hit it hard. There was no glass, there was no shrapnel,”...
Starting this month, three autonomous on-demand delivery robots will begin their trial within the community
“They identify where our mobile groups are positioned, where the machine guns are that can destroy them," says...
Biden describes the pair as “two of the most notorious leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel”
Wang says Beijing is “ready to work with Russia to... firmly support each other, safeguard each other’s core...