The Society for Threatened Peoples (STP) has accused the Mauritanian government of systematically defaming and intimidating critics of slavery and restricting their freedom of movement. On the occasion of the International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition (August 23) the human rights organization called for support of Mauritanian civil rights activists who, in spite of persecution by the state, continue to denounce the ongoing slavery practices in this northwest African country. "The European Union must take their own "Guidelines on Human Rights Defenders" seriously and make a commitment to ending the intimidation and persecution of human rights activists who oppose slavery," said Ulrich Delius, head of the Africa section at the STP.

Officially, slavery was abolished in Mauritania in 1981. According to estimates by Mauritanian human rights activists, however, there are still some 550,000 slaves in the country, forced to work for their "masters" as domestic servants or farm laborers for little or no money. Most of the slaves are Haratin from sub-Saharan Africa, who make up roughly 40% of the 3 million citizens of Mauritania.

The STP is particularly concerned about the fate of Mauritanian human rights activist Biram Dah Abeid. A leader of the anti-slavery movement IRA (Initiative pour la Résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste), Abeid was restricted in his freedom of travel after he criticized Mauritania's slavery practices at a conference in Paris in 2009. The government refused to renew his passport and an investigation was instituted against him. He was repeatedly pressured by police officers to refrain from all public criticism in future. Furthermore, government-run media outlets accused him of cooperating with the Israeli secret service, and labeled him a traitor and a blasphemer. Pressure on human rights activists increased again after Ms. Gulnara Shahinian, UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, publicly criticized the ongoing slavery practices in Mauritania in November 2009. In other attempt at defamation, a false health certificate was circulated claiming that Biram Dah Abeid was insane. He was also deposed from his position of expert advisor to the National Human Rights Commission and his organization, the IRA, was officially banned.

Translation: Elizabeth Crawford