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.
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have now joined the campaign for Mkhaitir’s freedom.
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.
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