Below is a translation of an article written in French by Marie-France Cros that was published by La Libre Belgique:

Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) adopted an urgent resolution that was proposed by the seven political groups of the EP on Thursday, 18 December 2014. The resolution concerns slavery in Mauritania, the worst country in the world for the issue, and calls on the authorities in Nouakchott to release 17 anti-slavery activists, among which Mr Biram Dah Abeid, who won the UN Human Rights Prize in 2013. The activists were arrested in the last few weeks, during an increased repression of the peaceful anti-slavery campaign.

The troubles started again after a press conference organised by Biram Dah Abeid, 49, President of the IRA anti-slavery organization, at the end of October 2014. During the press conference he broadcasted a declaration of the councillors of Chicago, who were calling for the international community to put an end to slavery in Mauritania, where, according to various sources, between 4 and 20% of the population are enslaved. 

The Mufti of the Great Mosque of Nouakchott, who according to the IRA owns several slaves, attacked anti-slavery activists and asked people to kill them. Some Haratin (a black ethnic group to which the slaves of Mauritania belong) believers stood up against the Imam’s proposals ; several other mosques preached against the anti-slavery activists as well. Some of those who opposed these proposals were arrested, as well as some people who took part in an anti-slavery march in the valley of the Senegal river.

The EP resolution is quite direct in its condemnation, despite the Mauritanian Government sending a special delegation from Mauritania led by the Human Rights Commissioner of Nouakchott to Strasbourg in order to lobby politicians against supporting the resolution. The resolution ‘severely condemns’ the arrest and detention of Biram Dah Abeit and his fellow anti-slavery activists and calls for their ‘immediate liberation’. Furthermore, the text asks Nouakchott to ‘prosecute the officials who were involved in the violence and torture’ of some of the prisoners.

More generally, the resolution condemns ‘every form of slavery’ and asks Mauritanian authorities to stop using violence against peaceful protests; to ‘authorise freedom of opinion and of assembly’ that Mauritanian laws theoretically allow; to fight slavery; to give everyone access to land property and education ‘so that former and current slaves and their children’ can then find jobs.

Finally, the resolution puts pressure on the EU’s diplomatic service for it to ‘increase its efforts to fight slavery in Mauritania’. In the past few days, the Special Representative of the EU for the Sahel Zone, Michel Reveyrand­de Menthon, was asked about the persistence of slavery in the country during a press conference. For the shame of Europe, he did not find any better answer than ‘I don’t know, I’m not able to express myself on this topic’.