Activists persecuted for opposing land-grab-driven slavery in Mauritania
Many Mauritanian citizens cannot wait for the year 2014 year to end. Unfortunately, 2015 does not look promising either.
First, blogger Mohamed Cheikh Ould Mohamed faces a death penalty sentence imposed on December 26 for blasphemy, though he denies insulting the prophet, saying his blog commentary was a reflection on an unjust social order based on a caste system that marginalizes underprivileged communities.
This cast system is also what has driven many activists in Mauritania to protest the ongoing land grabs by corporations against local farmers who are then forced to work the land they previously owned. One such activist is Biram Dah Abeid, head of the Initiative pour la Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste en Mauritanie IRA (the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolition Movement in Mauritania). He and other Mauritanian human rights activists were arrested on November 11, 2014.
In 2013, Dah Abeid received the United Nations Human Rights Award and the Front Line Defenders At Risk. He organized a nationwide rally to raise awareness about land-grab slavery—a practice that has proven especially harmful for the Haratin people, a community made of mostly farmers. Some of the rally's participants were arrested in November.
In this video, Dah Abeid explains the work of the initiative:
Front Line Defenders, an international human rights organization, posted the following notice on their website :
On 11 November 2014, Biram Dah Abeid and eight of his colleagues from IRA were charged and held in pre-trial detention in the prison in Rosso, because they took part in an illegal caravan of protest calling for the final abolition of slavery in Mauritania. Biram and his colleagues were held in isolation, beaten and had their mobile phones taken. Then, on 17 December, Biram and his colleagues were informed that their trial would be held the following day, even though his lawyers had not been given advance notice so they could prepare his defence. In Mauritania the practice of slavery persists in a more traditional way [..] continuing to live as chattel slaves to their masters. In practice, this means they can be bought and sold, hired out, or given away as gifts
In a press release on November 12, Amnesty International demanded that the activists be set free:
From his jail cell, Dah Abeid called on all human rights activists in Mauritania to get involved in the civil rights movement in a peaceful manner. He also added a message to the authorities:
They day following the arrest, Mauritanian diaspora in Europe and North America published a statement condemning the arrests:
Anti-slavery organizations have tried on several occasions to alert international media to a potential civil war in Mauritania because of what they call “a systemic pro-slavery position of the state that always sides with the slave-owners.” They have urged the international community to support the eradication of land-grab-driven slavery, to preserve the social cohesion of the nation.
Biram Dah Abeid has been arrested several times prior to this year. There is a now Facebook group advocating his release from jail that has 1,530 members.