Below is a press release published by IRA-Mauritanie:

Against a backdrop of sham popular demonstrations prodded by the executive power and the political class, majority and opposition alike, the IRA president, Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, and his colleagues have finally been released from their four month ordeal of illegal detention, physical abuse and deprivation of medical care and examinations on Monday 3 September 2012.

The quasi-totality of the political forces, usually from the slave-owning class, could hardly hide their collusion. They hushed up their disagreements for weeks to gather unitedly around one goal: the elimination of the IRA-Mauritanie and its president at all costs so as to clear the way for legitimizing slavery and its practices to reassure the people who relentlessly resort to it.

Regarding the liberation of its leader and its fellows, the IRA-Mauritanie would like to affirm the following: 

1- To thank the political parties and the national personalities who came together in force to express  their positions of support for the defense of the president and his fellow prisoners with a view to preserving civil peace and national unity; the national, sub-regional and international  human rights organizations and the elected officials who stood up for the president and his friends; the scholars who sided with the IRA to enlighten an audience that had been fanaticized on purpose; the Western diplomatic missions accredited in Nouakchott and the Mauritanian Bar Association, all of whom played a decisive role in the liberation of all anti-slavery activists who had been subjected to the unjust discretion of their jailer.

2- Continues to denounce the judicial proceedings against its president and its fellow prisoners by the Mauritanian public prosecutor with extremely serious charges against them, carrying a two, five or thirty-year prison sentence or even the death penalty.

3- Calls on all Mauritanians and human rights activists around the world to rally behind us with a view to putting an end to these types of false iniquitous accusations that reek of political vengeance and malice.

4- Demands the clearing of all charges against Biram and his colleagues for crimes without foundation, as attested by the decision made by the criminal court at Nouakchott's regional tribunal in front of which they appeared on 27 June 2012.

Nouakchott 9 September 2012

The communications commission

{Free translation}