France – Reporters Without Borders, June 03, 2026
With one week to go until the 2026 FIFA World Cup, Reporters Without Borders (RSF) reiterated on Wednesday its call for the release of French sports reporter Christophe Gleizes during an international press briefing focused on the tournament’s human rights impact. Christophe Gleizes, a contributor to the media outlets So Foot and Society, has been wrongfully detained in Algeria for nearly a year.
RSF participated in a press briefing hosted by the Sport & Rights Alliance — a key RSF partner — and Human Rights Watch. The briefing highlighted the experiences of people impacted by FIFA’s failures to uphold human rights protections. Human rights experts discussed the threat of heightened immigration enforcement at stadiums and FIFA’s lack of concrete policies to mitigate human rights concerns or address potential abuses.
RSF and its partners have called on FIFA to protect journalists, fans, and players and defend press freedom throughout the tournament, which will be held across the United States, Mexico, and Canada.
RSF Director General Thibaut Bruttin and Maxime Gleizes, Christophe’s brother, spoke at Wednesday’s briefing about the significance of Christophe Gleizes’ imprisonment and the determined effort to secure his release. It has been revealed today that the Algerian Supreme Court cleared the way on May 25th for a presidential pardon of a detained French journalist by rejecting an appeal from prosecutors for a tougher sentence and acknowledging the defendant’s withdrawal of his own appeal.
