Algeria's protest poet will need more than awards to avoid a life in prison

When the protests in Algeria began in 2019 - protests that would bring down the president, but not the regime - Mohamed Tadjadit was a fruit seller who wrote poems in his spare time.

- Steve Bloomfield

Like many of his friends, he had tried to emigrate to Europe, but was arrested in Greece and sent home. "I was just trying to get by," he told Al Jazeera in a 2022 interview.

But as the protests grew, Tadjadit joined them and began to recite his poetry. Videos were made and shared, and his words spread. "The ignorant took power," he wrote in one poem. "They placed justice under money's weight/And made freedom forbidden."

As if to prove his point, the authorities arrested him, accusing the poet of "exposing to public view publications likely to harm the national interest". It was the first of many arrests, and many imprisonments - all for the crime of poetry.

Next weekend Tadjadit is in court once again, and this time, prosecutors are seeking life imprisonment - and, possibly, the death penalty. He is now on hunger strike and, according to his lawyer, suffering from severe kidney pain.