Amid chants of "Allahu akbar", huge and angry crowds gathered outside the Supreme Court in Mauritania on Tuesday demanding the execution of a man who complained about religion being used to justify social discrimination.
In December 2013 engineer Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir wrote...
Blog archive: Mauritania
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16th November 2016
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30th December 2014The strange thing about laws against apostasy and blasphemy is that most of the people who fall foul of them are neither apostates nor intentional blasphemers. In practice these laws have very little to do with theology and are mostly used as a pretext for settling political scores or pursuing...
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5th April 2012The unrest in Mauritania continues to get scant attention from the English-language media, so here are some more details, pieced together from other sources. The video above is a report from al-Jazeera about the mass protest on Tuesday when opposition groups organised nine separate...
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4th April 2012Photo posted by Ahmed Ennahoui Has the Arab Spring reached Mauritania? Popular unrest is clearly growing and yesterday tens of thousands took to the streets of the capital, Nouakchott, calling on the president to step down. Up to now, this has largely gone...
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8th February 2010An interesting sidelight on the "trial" last week of Mauritanian journalist Hanefi Ould Dehah (or Dahah). The Moor Next Door blogreports that an Arabic translation of a Wall Street Journal articlecalling for his release was circulated in the courtroom and in the streets outside...
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6th February 2010A brief update on Hanefi Ould Dehah, the Mauritanian journalist whose case I reported last December. After completing a six-month sentence for "indecency", Ould Dedah – editor of theTaqadoumy news website – was not released but continued to be held in jail illegally. At a...
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16th January 2010A group of religious leaders and other prominent figures in Mauritania have issued a fatwa against female genital mutilation (FGM). The fatwa says FGM "has been proven by experts to be detrimental, immediately or subsequently. Hence, such a practice, as is performed domestically, is...
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9th January 2010The government of ex-general Ould Abdel Aziz, who seized power in Mauritania in 2008 and then won a questionable election last July, has come up with a new law against terrorism. Ould Abdel Aziz is generally given an easy ride internationally – easier than he deserves – because,...
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29th December 2009Mauritanian journalist Hanefi Ould Dehah has reportedly begun a hunger strike in protest at his continued detention after completing a jail sentence. Ould Dehah, editor of the Taqadoumy news website, was serving six months for "indecency" but since his sentence expired on...
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5th November 2009Mauritania's law against slavery is not being properly enforced and victims are not encouraged to come forward, according to a UN expert who has just completed a fact-finding mission to the country. Although "significant steps" have been taken, "a comprehensive and holistic...
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3rd November 2009The UN's special rapporteur on modern forms of slavery, Gulnara Shahinian, is due to complete a two-week fact-finding visit to Mauritania with a press conference today. Despite legislation against it, light-skinned Arab Muslims (bidanes) continue to own black-skinned ...
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10th August 2009A young man blew himself up in Nouakchott, the Mauritanian capital, on Saturday evening. Nobody else was killed. It was the country’s first suicide bombing. Some reports suggest the intended target may have been the French embassy and point a finger at Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (...
