Florence, AZ – Federal workers may not be getting paid during the government shutdown, but the ICE deportation machine continues its grind. In Arizona, ICE officials are preparing a charter flight to Africa at the cost of $148,000–all to deport a handful of people, possibly as few as nine. The charter may leave Arizona tonight or sometime tomorrow.
But the simple financial idiocy of this move is not the only thing that matters. More important are the lives of the charter plane’s intended passengers. At least four Mauritanian men from Ohio were transferred–in shackles–from Ohio jails, first to Louisiana and then to Arizona in order to be put on this plane. They have American children, wives, jobs, and homes. They fled Mauritanian genocide decades ago. And now, if they are deported, they are likely to be arrested and tortured just like so many others have been in recent months.
As Amadou Sow told NBC News before he was transferred out of Ohio: “We’re just scared. As soon as I get [to Mauritania] I believe something is going to happen. I don’t know what. I might be in jail. I might be killed.”
Sow has reason to be afraid. Reports from Thomson Reuters and Reveal News with The Center for Investigative Reporting document that individuals deported from the U.S. to Mauritania are regularly being arrested, tortured, and held in jails there, until they are able to pay a bribe and escape. Most of them immediately flee to other countries, refugees once again.
As Lisa Riordan Seville pointed out in her piece, “The State Department has documented myriad human rights violations toward black Mauritanians. In November, the Trump administration also terminated trade benefits with Mauritania for its insufficient progress in eradicating the ‘scourge of hereditary slavery.’”
These post-deportation arrests and detentions were also documented by Biram Dah Abeid in an affidavit filed with the U.S. Government last year. Abeid was since arrested by the Mauritanian government and held in jail for five months, only gaining freedom in the waning hours of 2018.
In 2018, six conservative Republicans urged the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to cease funding for Mauritania. CAJ News Africa wrote about the scathing letter they sent to IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde: “Gone is the diplomatic waffle of politics, replaced by a condemnation of President Mohamed Aziz that goes beyond even the tweets of Mr Trump, accusing Mauritania and its government of theft, slavery, corruption and a ‘heinous human rights record.”
In the letter, Representatives Mark Meadows, Thomas Garrett, Jeff Duncan, Gus Bilirakis, Lee Zeldin, and Scott Perry argued that IMF funds would not be used to benefit the poor in that country, but to further the Mauritanian president’s record of corruption, repression, and torture.
Still, the Trump Administration continues to deport people to this nation, turning a blind eye on what awaits them when the plane touches ground.
For now, though, at least two seats on that $148,000 charter plane will be empty. Over the weekend, the families of Amadou Sow of Cincinnati and Goura Ndiaye of Columbus received the news they had been praying for. Their husbands/fathers received a temporary stay of deportation from the Board of Immigration Appeals, giving the court more time to decide whether to reopen their deportation cases. The stays mean that ICE cannot deport them until the court makes another ruling.
In relief Awa Harouna, daughter of Amadou Sow, said: “I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s like I can finally breathe again.”
Two other men, however, have not been as lucky. Oumar Thiam of Cincinnati and another Mauritanian American from Columbus are still waiting on decisions from the courts regarding their motions. We fear they may be deported without an answer.
Sow and Ndiaye’s lawyer, Alexandria Lubans-Otto, said: “These men are not a priority for ICE and during a partial government shutdown, with limited funds, spending this much money to fly them back to a nation where they face displacement, slavery, detention or death makes no sense, on an economic level as well as on a humanitarian level.”
“The Trump Administration has ample evidence to indicate that deporting Black Mauritanians back to the nation that expelled them is putting their lives in grave danger. Yet, the deportation machine continues to crank on,” said Lynn Tramonte, Director of the Ohio Immigrant Alliance. “The Trump Administration’s own US Trade Representative, State Department, CIA, and six of the most conservative members of Congress have issued warnings about human rights atrocities committed by the Mauritanian government–practices directed at the very group of individuals being deported today.
“This $148,000 charter plane is an obscene use of money at a time when the government is ostensibly shut down and federal workers are struggling to pay their bills. It is also immoral to deport these men to a country where they will be arrested, abused, and forced to flee again.”
WHAT YOU CAN DO: African Immigrant Relief, the Ohio Immigrant Alliance, and Cleveland Jobs With Justice are raising money for the legal defense of Black Mauritanians at risk of deportation and abuse. Please donate here, or text to donate ATHOME to 44321.
Follow the Ohio Immigrant Alliance on Twitter @tramontela
IRA – USA stands in solidarity with Mauritanians beaten and imprisoned for their defense of human rights.
We support the renewed petition hosted by Freedom Now that calls for the release of Biram Dah Abeid from prison and for an end to the police harassment of human rights defenders.
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October 15, 2018
Your Excellency Minister Dia Moctar Malal,
The arrest of the president of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement
(IRA) Biram Dah Abeid and Abdellahi el Housein Mesoud (IRA member) on 7 August and their
subsequent detention on remand, is a matter of grave concern to us. We write ahead of his
hearing, to seek your assurances that he will benefit from all fair trial guarantees, including
legal assistance and release pending trial.
Our concern is shared by over 230,000 people around the world who have signed a petition*
addressed to yourself and President Mohamed Ould Abel Aziz, calling for an end to the
harassment of anti-slavery activists and for Mr Abeid’s release pending his fair trial.
The President of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) is
recognised for his work internationally, having received the United Nations Prize in the Field of
Human Rights in 2013, as well as others. In recent years, Biram Dah Abeid has been imprisoned
three times. The timing of Mr Abeid’s latest arrest on the closing day for the registration of
candidates for the national elections took place in the context of an ongoing clampdown on
Mauritania’s anti-slavery movement, in particular arbitrary arrests and detention.
Since 2014, Mauritanian authorities have resorted to a range of measures to discourage or
punish anti-slavery activists from IRA. Our organisations have over this period documented
over 63 cases of arbitrary arrests of human rights defenders, at least a dozen of whom were
reported to have been subjected to torture and other-ill treatment in detention.
In July 2016, 13 anti-slavery activists were arrested charged with “armed assembly”, “violence
against agents of the public force” rebellion, and “membership of an unregistered
organization”. Whilst three were acquitted in 2016, two of those convicted, without any
evidence having been provided at trial – Abdellahi Matalla Saleck and Moussa Bilal Biram –
were released in July this year after serving their sentence. Their detention in a remote Saharan
desert prison, with no realistic possibility of visits by their lawyers or family, and reported
torture and ill-treatment in detention, attracted international concern.
Together we call on you to bring an end to the harassment and intimidation of those seeking to
secure the rights of the disempowered, specifically, anti-slavery activists Biram Dah Abeid and
Abdellahi el Housein Mesoud, and to take steps to ensure that justice and the rule of law
Former Mauritanians are now subject to deportation by the current presidential administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
IRA – USA supports the asylum applications of all persecuted Mauritanians. These individuals have fled from state-sponsored racial violence, slavery, and arbitrary deprivation of citizenship.
IRA – USA joins the Ohio Immigrant Alliance and the immigration attorneys in opposing these deportations.
Deportation from the United States to Mauritania violates the human rights of those seeking asylum. Serious harm will likely befall anyone deported to this country.
The former Mauritanians who live in the USA do not have current Mauritanian citizenship. Thus the USA will throw these individuals into a situation of ripe for abuse. Non-citizens in Mauritania cannot work, cannot travel in the country, cannot obtain a passport to leave the country, cannot attend school and cannot register any children they might have as Mauritanian citizens.
Mauritania has the highest percentage of contemporary slavery in the world. Anyone deported back to Mauritania is susceptible to extreme abuse and subjugation.
The state practices racist policies toward the Black Africans — Pular, Wolof, Soninke and Bambara — who have lived on their lands for centuries. Black former Mauritanians will be subject to state racism if deported to Mauritania.
Finally, Mauritania is an extremely conservative Islamic Republic. Any former Mauritania who does not adhere to a strict and deeply conservative Islam is open to accusation of blasphemy. If convicted of blasphemy, the death sentence is imposed. The new blasphemy law allows no appeal for any conviction.
The Unrepresented Peoples’ Organization (UNPO) worked with the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission of the U.S. Congress to organize a briefing on Slavery in the Sahel.
This event on July 24, 2018 featured Alice Bullard, human rights attorney in Washington DC, Biram Dah Abeid, president of IRA – Mauritanie, Maurice Middleberg, Executive Director of Free the Slaves, Ismael Montana, a historian from the University of Northern Illinois, and Bakary Tandia, co-founder of the Abolition Institute.
This briefing focused on the complicated roots of contemporary slavery, such as the reported slave markets in Libya, as well as on policy recommendations.
Today IRA – USA announces a new direction for its organization.
IRA – USA has long worked in alliance with Biram Dah Abeid’s organization, IRA – Mauritanie. Together we have worked to free those held in slavery in Mauritania, to empower ex-slaves, to counter the state-racism in Mauritania, and to promote gender equality.
Mr. Abeid has created the Sawab alliance in order to qualify IRA – Mauritanie adherents as candidates in local elections. Mr. Abeid himself plans to run for the office of president of Mauritania in the 2019 election. IRA – Mauritanie and its political arm, known as RAG, cannot appear on ballots because they are not officially recognized organizations in Mauritania. Sawab has official standing, but does not have enough popularity to draw a significant proportion of the vote. Both Sawab and Mr. Abeid expect advantages to flow from the alliance.
Established in 2004 and run by Abdessalam Ould Horma, Sawab has championed the Arabization of Mauritania and has challenged the nationality of the refugees from 1989 who fled ethnic violence to live in Senegal and Mali.
IRA – USA opposes state racism in Mauritania. The bias of the national government against the sub-Saharan African Mauritanian communities has long stigmatized Black Mauritanians and subjected them to significant hardships. For example, a significant percentage of Black Mauritanians have found it impossible to get national identity cards. Without a national identity card a child cannot enroll in school, and an adult cannot get a job, register to vote, nor obtain a passport. The ethnic violence of 1989 and the purging of Black Mauritanian military officers are human rights crimes that continue to haunt the nation.
Sawab, an Arab-nationalist political party, has directly challenged the nationality of the 1989 refugees. Sawab is publicly identified with promoting the fear that Mauritania might turn into a Black African state. This overtly racist politics cannot be condoned. Soninke, Fulani, Wolof and Bambara Africans have lived on these lands for centuries. Mauritania has become identified as an Arab state through the systematic exclusion of Black Mauritanians, an exclusion rooted in the violence of 1989, from positions of authority in the state and the military. Forced Arabization is part of this politics of racial exclusion.
IRA – USA will consider future partnerships to advance our mission in Mauritania.
On March 28th 2018, the special slavery court Nouadhibou, Mauritania sentenced father and son slave owners to 20 years in prison. In the same case, a woman slave owner received a 10 year year sentence. The men, Saleck Ould Amar and his son Hamoudi Ould Saleck, must also pay a fine of 500.000 MRU. Ravea Mint Mohamed must pay 250.000 MRU in amends. Reportedly Mint Mohamed is in custody but the men have gone into hiding, thus escaping imprisonment.
These criminal penalties for slave owning are the harshest sentences ever pronounced in Mauritania. Typically slave owners escape punishment. Instead the police and local authorities prefer to imprison the anti-slavery protestors.
Mauritania criminalised slavery in 2007 and enacted a law in 2015 that names slavery as a crime against humanity. Nonetheless successful prosecutions are extremely rare. This trial is only the second successful prosecution for slave owning. In the previous successful prosecution, however, the slave owners received very light sentences of only two to five years in prison. In that case, two women in their 30s had both been subject to slavery their entire lives. Such lenient sentences do not comply with the 2015 anti-slavery statute.
“This is a big victory,” Jakub Sobik of Anti-Slavery International told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The sentences are quite high and in line with the law, which is by no means a given.”
The former slaves were aided in this prosecution by SOS-Esclaves and Anti-Slavery International. Slave owning cases typically languish for years and years in the courts, because of a reluctance to prosecute. The March 28th sentencing is the product of a a seven-year fight, said Salimata Lam of Mauritanian group SOS Esclaves.
Earlier this year, the African Union urged Mauritania to issue harsher sentences for the crime.
Reporting in English for TR Foundation by Nellie Peyton
The Thomson Reuters Foundation is the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, trafficking, property rights, and climate change. Visit www.trust.org
Our campaign on behalf of Mohamed Ould Cheikh Ould Mkhaitir finally succeeded. He had been sentenced to death for a blog post that was denounced as blasphemous. This already was a horrible situation, because the point of his blog post was to protest the use of Islam as the basis for caste-based discrimination. Mkhaitir comes from the smithy-caste (fogerons in French, or malamine in Haratine), which has historically been considered very low status. This low caste status served as grounds for all types of exclusions and impoverishment.
Mkhaitir’s intent was to prevent those in power from using religion to uphold this caste-based discrimination. Instead of successfully bringing this issue into political debate, he was charged with blasphemy, thrown in jail and sentenced to be executed.
Our long campaign on behalf of Mkhaitir finally succeeded. His sentence was reduced to two years and he was released.
BUT just days later, the Mauritanian government strengthened their blasphemy law. This is an abdication of their duty under international human rights treaties, to which they are ratified party. In particular it conflicts with article 18 of the ICCPR which provides for freedom of conscience and freedom of religion.
The new blasphemy law revokes the right to repent of an allegedly blasphemous statement. This is historically unprecedented. Sharia traditionally allows for the right to repent. Mauritania adopted a shari’a based legal code in 1980. This innovation in 2017 is far more rigid than any traditional Malikite legal code.
In contrast to all the historical culture and traditions of the peoples of Mauritania, a rigid and intolerant Islam advances in Mauritania with this new blasphemy law.
The Real News network focuses on the long struggle to end slavery in Mauritania and all the many activists who have pushed forward toward emancipation.
Mohammed Mkhaitir’s appeal of his death sentence for blasphemy was successful!
The Court of Appeals has reduced his penalty to two years imprisonment. Mkhaitir has been in prison since January 2014, so he should be released for time served.
Here is the press report from Mauritania:
Mauritanie : 2 ans de prison pour le blogueur condamné pour blasphème
ALAKHBAR (Nouakchott) – La Cour d’appel de Nouadhibou (Nord Mauritanie) a condamné le blogueur mauritannien Mohamed Ould Mkheitir à deux (2) ans d’emprisonnement pour blasphème.
Cette condamnation signifie la libration du blogueur qui séjourne en prison depuis plus de deux ans (Janvier 2014 / novembre 2017). Mohamed Ould Mkheitir peut réclamer son indemnisation pour avoir passé en prison au-delà de là de la période légale.
Mercredi, le Parquet avait requis la peine de mort pour apostasie. La défense, composée de maître fatimata mbaye et de Mohamed Ould Amin avait demandé la libération de leur client et son indemnisation.
On November 8, 2017 Mohammed Ould Mkhaitir again appealed his death sentence. In January 2014 Mkhaitir was sentenced to death for blasphemy because he wrote a short blog protesting the use of religion as a rationale for racist caste-based discrimination.
Since then, imams have led huge street protests calling for Mkhaitir’s death.
Our campaign for Mkhaitir’s freedom joined forces with Freedom Now to petition the U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention for his freedom. Our petition was successful at the U.N. level, but not in Mauritania. Here is the UN Working Group Ruling.
We stand for freedom of conscience, freedom of expression, and freedom of religion in rejecting any prosecution for the alleged crime of blasphemy. We call on Mauritania to adhere to its obligations under human rights treaty law and to annul the blasphemy conviction of Mkhaitir.
Two French human rights researchers — a journalist and a human rights advocate — were expelled from Mauritania on May 2, 2017. Marie Foray and Tiphanie Gosse had been invited to Mauritania by the Association Mauritanienne pour les Droits de l’Homme (AMDH). Fatimata M’Baye, the President of AMDH, expressed her surprise and embarrassment regarding the expulsion of these researchers.
IRA members, including Balla Toure, were arrested the same week in Guidimaka. They have since been released. There was no evident grounds for these arrests.
Marie Foray
Marie Foray, universitaire en droits de l’homme et Tiphaine Gosse, journaliste, ont été déclarées « persona non grata » par les autorités mauritaniennes alors qu’elles effectuaient des recherches sur l’esclavage et le racisme en Mauritanie. Lors de leur convocation à la DGSN le vendredi 28 avril 2017, le général Mohamed Ould Meguett a déclaré : “il n’y a pas d’esclavage en Mauritanie”. Ce dernier a ensuite exigé qu’elles quittent le pays sous un délai de 5 jours afin de les empêcher de poursuivre leurs investigations dans le pays.
Accusées de travailler pour des organisations non reconnues (IRA, Initiative pour la résurgence du Mouvement Abolitionniste et TPMN, Touche Pas à Ma Nationalité), elles ont été contraintes de rentrer en France le mardi 2 mai 2017. Marie Foray et Tiphaine Gosse effectuaient toutes deux leur deuxième séjour sur le territoire mauritanien. Marie Foray, en Mauritanie depuis le 18 Mars, a commencé à rencontrer des difficultés au moment du renouvellement de son visa. Convoquée à de nombreuses reprises par la direction de la sûreté du territoire, elle a subi de la part des autorités mauritaniennes un harcèlement moral, allant d’insinuations à caractère sexuel jusqu’à des menaces de prison sans qu’il lui soit fait part, dans un premier temps, des accusations portées à son encontre. Au bout de trois semaines, lors d’une convocation à la DGSN, il lui a été signifié que son visa ne lui serait pas renouvelé. Tiphaine Gosse et elle même devaient quitter le territoire au plus vite sous peine de prison, alors que Tiphaine Gosse disposait pour sa part d’un visa toujours valable. Marie Foray, présente en Mauritanie sur Invitation de l’AMDH (Association Mauritanienne pour les Droits de l’Homme, présidée par Maître Fatimata Mbaye, association reconnue en Mauritanie), s’est vu accusée de ne pas avoir choisi un organisme gouvernemental tel que la CNDHA pour être encadrée dans ses recherches. Les photos de victimes de l’esclavage, les interviews réalisées, les rencontres effectuées auprès de jeunes soucieux de dénoncer l’injustice dont ils s’estiment victimes au sein de leur propre pays, les entretiens menés auprès d’anciens prisonniers injustement incriminés en raison de leur combat contre l’esclavage constituent les véritables raisons ayant conduit les autorités mauritaniennes à les « chasser » du pays. Leur détermination à entraver leur travail, leur départ forcé et précipité suivi, le même jour, par l’arrestation de Balla TOURE, Samba DIAGANA, Hanana MBOIRICK, Kaw LO et de Meimoune BOUGAH à Sélibaby, tous militants de l’IRA, montre à quel point ce sujet reste extrêmement sensible et tabou en Mauritanie. Paris, Mercredi 3 mai 2017
