Mauritania: 13 anti-slavery activists slammed with 15-yr sentence each for role in riot

A tribunal has found 13 anti-slavery activists culpable of inciting illegal riots in Mauritania last June and has slammed each of them with a 15-year sentence.

Members of the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) were also found guilty of counts including attacks against the government, armed assembly and membership of an unrecognised organisation.

But the defendants claimed that they were not present at the riots which took place in June insisting that the trial was politically motivated.

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Members of the IRA also claimed that their trial is an attempt by the government to discredit their organisation even as the decision by the government was condemned on Friday by international campaigners as a “devastating blow to the Mauritanian anti-slavery movement”.

According to Sarah Mathewson, Africa Programme Manager at Anti-Slavery International, the activists were “clearly being targeted by the government for their work to expose and denounce slavery which is still commonplace in the country”.

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