Jan 19, 2012

Haratin: Protesters Against Slavery Arrested in Mauritania


Several campaigners for the abolition of slavery in Mauritania were arrested on 15 January 2012, with all those detained being members of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement, an NGO in Mauritania.

Below is an article published by Afrique en ligne:

Several supporters of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement  (IRA), a Mauritanian NGO campaigning for the end of slavery in the country, were arrested Sunday afternoon [15 January2012] following clashes within the Tribunal of Aioun El Atrouss, 824 kilometres east of Nouakchott.

The NGO affirms that its supporters were brought to the city's court 'for having denounced cases of slavery' in that region of Eastern Mauritania.

NGO's activists clashed within the precincts of the tribunal with individuals whom they accuse of defending the cause of alleged slave traders, with one person wounded in each camp, a local source told PANA.

In Nouakchott, IRA supporters staged protest sits-in in front of the justice ministry and the national  assembly 'to say no to a State supporting slavery practices, pressing for the protection of anti-slavery activists and the implementation of the 2007 Act criminalizing slavery'