A success for the anti-slavery movement: Winner of the Weimar Human Rights Award will be released

The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) is relieved that the Mauritanian human rights activist Biram Dah Abeid and six of his colleagues from the anti-slavery movement IRA (Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement in Mauritania) have been released. The human rights activists had been imprisoned since the end of April 2012 and were set free provisionally on Monday night by order of the investigating judge. "The release of the human rights activists is a great success for the Mauritanian anti-slavery movement. We were in fear for the life of the slavery-critics", said the STP's Africa-expert Ulrich Delius in Göttingen on Tuesday. "We were especially worried about the compromised health of Biram Dah Abeid." The IRA-chairman and winner of the Weimar Human Rights Prize of 2011 fell seriously ill during custody and had lost more than 15 kiolograms in weight since his arrest.

"We are now hoping that the charges of terrorism against the anti-slavery activists can be dropped to put an end to the proceedings," said Delius. "It would be a perverted form of justice and a politically motivated lawsuit if human rights activists were to be accused of “endangering state security” by Mauritanian courts." At best, the now released human rights activists were a threat to the slave owners and their friends within the government, but not for the state of Mauritania. "

Biram Dah Abeid and his associates were arrested in late April 2012. During protests against continued forms of slavery that are officially banned, they had been arrested for burning religious texts that justify servitude. The faithful Muslims had tried to draw attention to their protest against Muslim clerics who support slavery.

"Mauritania's government must finally fight slavery effectively instead of locking up unwelcome critics who remind the public of the fact that there are still approximately 500,000 people being held as slaves in the North-West African country", criticized Delius. For two years, the Mauritanian authorities had denied an official registration of the IRA and had systematically tried to discredit and close down the human rights organization.