Mauritanian MP accuses authorities of prisoner abuse

Mauritanian Parliamentarian Tut Mint Al-Taleb Al-Nafe’ accused the authorities of torturing prisoners inside Mauritania’s jails, Anadolu news agency reported on Tuesday.

During a question and answer session in parliament with Mauritanian Justice Minister Sidi Ould Zain, Nafe’ said that the situation inside Mauritania’s prisons is “unacceptable”.

Responding to her accusations, Zain said that the situation is “acceptable” when compared with prisons in the neighbouring countries, without specifying which.

However, Nafe’, who is a parliamentarian affiliated to an Islamist party, pointed out that: “Several deaths have been registered recently in the Mauritanian prisons because of maltreatment.”

She added that sometimes prisoners even revolted or tried to burn their quarters because of “grave circumstances” and “ill-treatment”.

For his part, Zain insisted that death is not an indicator of a bad situation, as “inmates [like other people] are not fortified against death”. He said that the number of deaths is very low and the cause of most deaths recorded is an already existing illness.

He continued: “For the last five years, only one case of torture was registered and the criminals in that case are still in prison.”

Human rights reports have recently accused the Mauritanian authorities of ignoring prisoners rights and mistreating them. Amnesty International issued a report last year saying that Mauritanian men, women and children are tortured to confess to crimes while in detention.

Furthermore, several months ago a Salafist inmate died while inside prison, according to his family, because of mistreatment.