Case of Mauritania’s anti-slavery activists opens in their absence

An appeal case by two Mauritanian anti-slavery activists began on Thursday in Aleg, 250 km east of the capital Nouakchott, in the absence of the accused Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid and Brahim Ould Bilal who decided to boycott the proceedings, a judicial source told Xinhua.

Sentenced in January to two years in prison by a court in Rosso, some 204 km south of Nouakchott, the two leaders of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) decided not to appear before the court in Aleg where they were transferred after being sentenced.

“We shall not go to court unless if we are taken there by force. We shall not come out of the vehicle ourselves. If they take us by force, we shall not respond to any question from the judge,” Biram Ould Dah told journalists on Wednesday.

“The two prisoners were moved by force from their detention center in Rosso where they had been sentenced,” a member of the defence team, Me Ould Miske, told the media.

According to Ould Miske, the prosecution of the two anti-slavery activists was a “political trial.”
On Thursday morning, security forces in Aleg prevented IRA supporters from accessing the court or demonstrating on the streets in the town.

Vehicle owners were forced by police to go around the Aleg city-center where hundreds of IRA members and opposition supporters had assembled to go and attend the proceedings at the court.

A judicial source in Aleg said the prosecutor urged the court to uphold the two year sentence that had initially been given to the two by the court in Rosso. Enditem

Source: Xinhua