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Human rights group accuses Mauritanian president of concealing slavery cases

August 7, 2014 at 12:16 pm

The Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) in Mauritania yesterday accused President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz of concealing slavery practices in the country, the Anadolu news agency reported.

The banned movement said in a statement: “The Mauritanian president interferes with the Mauritanian justice system to prevent it from considering cases of hundreds of slavery victims in Mauritania.”

On Saturday, Free, an anti-slavery movement, said the president’s policies “devote slavery and discriminatory disparities among citizens”.

Mauritanian authorities were not available to comment on IRA claims, but they usually deny them, stressing that they make unremitting efforts to eradicate slavery.

In March, the Mauritanian government approved a road map which includes 29 recommendations to combat slavery, affecting the legal, economic and social aspects of the phenomenon.

Observers believe the roadmap represents a practical step in the fight against this phenomenon.

The debate over slavery in Mauritania dates back to the first years of independence in the 1960s when slavery was a common trend.

The first abolition law came in 1982 during the rule of former President Mohamed Khouna Ould Haidallah, but years later, human rights activists say that many cases of slavery persist across Mauritania. Meanwhile local authorities insist that they are making intensive efforts to combat slavery.