Arrest of Mauritanian Anti-Slavery Leader

Arrest of Mauritanian Anti-Slavery Leader

Mr. Biram Dah Abeid, president of the ‘Initiative de Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste de Mauritanie’ (IRA), was arrested on 28 April 2012 following his act of publicly burning several pages of a Malikite theological book, a text which asserts that slavery is a practice embraced by the Islamic faith. A further eleven people, all members and sympathizers of the IRA, were also forcibly detained during night raids in the days following the act.
As the burning of books is not a crime under Mauritanian law, police were unable to serve the arrested parties with an official arrest warrant. But the twelve detainees, including one disabled person, were denied their right to legal counsel, and on 3 May 2012 were transported to an unknown location by the Mauritanian Secret Service (DSE).

Mr. Biram Dah Abeid, a longtime nonviolent activist for the abolition of slavery in Mauritania, stated in an interview with La Tribune only a couple of hours before his arrest, that these theological texts legitimize the practice of slavery in Mauritania.

“These books are in no way a reference to Islam but rather a reference to slave trade literature, to which dominant groups have given an Islamic stamp for the past centuries. However Islam has nothing to do with such enslaving practices that are inhuman and abhorrent, and to which slaves and black people have been exposed to in the Arab and Muslim world. For centuries, they legalized and gave religious background to practices such as castration, rape, corporal punishment, mutilation, dehumanization, labor without rest or payment, slave trade, family separation, etc.,  which are all practices that are totally unknown to the Koran and to the Sunna (word and deed) of the prophet”. (La Tribune, 30-4-2012)

Mauritania abolished slavery in 1981 - the last country in the world to do so. Only in 2007 it passed a law that officially criminalizes slave owners. So far, however, the Mauritanian court has prosecuted only one case. According to the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Gulnara Shahinian, 10% to 20% of Mauritania’s 3.4 million people are enslaved (CNN Freedom Project). Especially the ethnic group of Black Moors, the Haratin, have been the victim of slavery over the past centuries, up until today.

“It’s time that we recognize Haratinne [sic] who are the majority in Mauritania, as human beings”, declared Mr. Biram Dah Abeid in the interview with La Tribune, upon explaining the act of burning books. Article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Mauritania is a state party, protects freedom of expression, which includes “freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds”. The United Nations Human Rights Committee has stated that this right “embraces even expression that may be regarded as deeply offensive.” 

The imprisonment of Mr. Biram Dah Abeid and eleven other members or sympathizers of the IRA has highlighted the failure of Mauritanian authorities to properly implement the rule of law in ensuring the basic human rights of its citizens are upheld.

Background information:
- Amnesty International appeals for action regarding the situation of Mr. Biram Dah abeid and other members and sympathizers of the IRA.
- The United Nations Refugee Agency published, in conjunction with the Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders, a report in 2011 that addresses the harassment against human rights defenders in Mauritania who denounce the practice of slavery.
- The CNN Freedom Project on Mauritania as ‘slavery’s last stronghold’.
- The UNPO is organizing a conference on Contemporary Slavery in the European Parliament on 27 June 2012.