Rights groups report abuses by Mauritanian authorities

The World Organisation Against Torture (OMCT - French abbreviation) says it has received information that police in southwestern Mauritania had tortured and otherwise abused 83 black Mauritanians, including 31 women, during and after demonstrations on 17-18 June. The demonstrators had protested in the town of Brakna against the actions of a regional governor who gave his brother a large concession of land belonging to Haratines (descendants of Black slaves) for development. The OMCT, which received the information from an anti-slavery group called SOS-Esclaves Mauritanie, said that despite the protests the governor’s brother was still building a water reserve on the land. [Mauritania’s people are divided into Beydane or “white” Moors, blacks and people of mixed origin] The OMCT said the community had sent a letter of protest to state officials, including the minister of the interior and the presidents of the national assembly and the Senate, indicating that doctors had refused to examine the injuries the police had inflicted on the protesters and that the area’s police commissioner, prosecutor and examining magistrate had refused to accept their claims. The international NGO called for letters to be sent to the Mauritanian authorities to ask them to “guarantee the physical and psychological integrity of the women and provide adequate medical treatment for all injuries sustained, and ensure reparations and compensation”. The authorities should also be urged to investigate the allegations of torture and other abuses and guarantee the rights of all Haratines, it said.