Below is an article published by the IRA-Mauritania:

Mohamed Ould ElKory, Mauritanian citizen, member of the Haratin community (slaves and former slaves), currently in Geneva, Switzerland.

Letter

To the president of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva;

To the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights;

To the president of the IRA-Mauritania in Nouakchott (Mauritania);

Dear Madam, Dear Sir,

I belong to the Haratin ethnicity, the largest community in Mauritania, but who unfortunately continues to suffer from the practice of slavery, social and racial discrimination, economic and social poverty, and is deprived of education and health. Our community is also victim of repression and prevention to associate, demonstrate, and to enjoy our right to express ourselves on our long-established destitute situation. The discriminatory and proslavery power that governs Mauritania imposes silence to our elite about our issues and the false testimonies and statements against us, in return for State positions or special benefits.

This is why my uncle Mohamed Ould Brahim has benefited from the Minister of the Interior of Mauritania from the right to register a so-called human rights NGO (an organization against extremist speech) the very day after the incarceration of the president of the IRA-Mauritania and of some of his comrades, on 13 December 2010, because they had denounced a slavery case. This uncle and some other Haratin like himself aimed at vilifying the president of the IRA-Mauritania and to bring unfair accusations against him in Mauritanian newspapers and international fora.  This uncle was deeply involved with the intelligence circles, I depended on him and he registered me as a Member of his NGO. I did not have any choice, but of course as a Haratin my heart and souls were all for the IRA-Mauritania and its president. I could not express this feeling publicly back home considering how much I depended on my uncle and that he could retaliate against me.  However now that my uncle has made me travel to Geneva by request of ambassador Ould Zahaf, with the goal to attack the IRA-Mauritania and its president at the Human Rights Council, I use this opportunity and the free environment I enjoy in this country to state loud and clear my refusal of the slavery system that oppresses my community and my solidarity with Biram Dah Abeid and the IRA-Mauritania. And in a second document, which will be addressed to the recipient of this letter and to the national and international opinions, I will reveal how the Commissioner for Human Rights for the Struggle Against Poverty and the Relations with Civil Society in Mauritania, the Mauritanian ambassador in Geneva and an African NGO accredited in Geneva and with the ECOSOC proceed to embezzle the money of the Mauritanian taxpayers to cover travel expenses, per diem expenses and other illegal benefits for those who are in charge of waging war against the true defenders of human rights.

I inform you, ladies and gentlemen, that the president of the NGO Comité Internationale pour le Respect et l’Application de la Charte Africaine des Droits de l’Homme et des peuples (CIRAC), Mr. Malusa Wa Mavula M., who by order of the ambassador had provided me with the invitation and accreditation to participate in the 22nd ordinary session of the Human Rights Council in the Palace of Nations in Geneva, from the 25th February to the 22nd March 2013, refused to give me the entry badge because he claimed he needed the approval of the Mauritanian ambassador in Geneva, Cheikh Ahmed Ould Zahaf. The latter heard that I was not planning to follow the Mauritanian government’s position that dnies the existence of slavery. He simply ordered the NGO that obey him, that of my uncle, the association against extremist speech, and that of M. Malusa, mentioned above, to prevent me from accessing the room where the Council was being held. Thus, before providing more details in other writings about the threats that I am facing, I heartily denounce the cronyism between NGOs that are supposed to be independent and the police and diplomatic circles of the States.

Geneva, 20 March 2013