Mauritania lawmakers sentenced to 4 years after insulting president over racial bias claims

NOUAKCHOTT, Mauritania (AP) — Two female opposition lawmakers in Mauritania were sentenced Monday to four years in prison after insulting the president and making claims of racial bias, their lawyers told The Associated Press, in the West African nation long criticized by rights groups for human rights abuses and the persistence of slavery.

Last month, lawmakers Marieme Cheikh Dieng and Ghamou Achour were charged with “attacking the symbols of the state” and “calling for gatherings with a view to undermine public security” after they posted messages on social media critical of President Mohamed Ould Ghazouani.

The two lawmakers had called in several social media posts for Ghazouani’s removal and accused the Arab-dominated justice system of treating Black citizens and descendants of slaves as second-class citizens.

The lawmakers’ attorneys — Mohamed Ould Ahmed Miske, Yaghoub Ould Sèïf and Moctar Ould Ely — confirmed the verdict of the trial at a criminal court in the capital Nouakchott to the AP. The government has not commented on the conviction.

The West African nation has long been denounced for human rights abuses, with the continuous existence of slavery casting a long shadow over its history. For centuries, the country’s economic and political elite of Arab and Amazigh people enslaved Black people from the northwest Sahara.

Mauritania outlawed slavery in 1981, the last country in the world to do so. But the practice continues, human rights groups say, with around 149,000 people in modern slavery in this nation of less than 5 million, according to the 2023 Global Slavery Index.

Biram Dah Abeid, leader of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement coalition group, condemned the trial as unjust and politically motivated, calling the two lawmakers “heroes” and “sincere fighters against injustice,” at a news conference after the verdict.

The lawmakers are with the coalition, which is not a registered political party but allied with the registered Sawab party to help them get elected.

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