Persecution of Black Mauritanians
- Artist/Author/Producer: 30 Intellectuals
- Confronting Bodies: Mauritanian Government
- Dates of action: September 1986
- Location: Mauritania
- Description of the Art Work
- " ...Blacks who have spoken out against discrimination have borne the
brunt of the (Mauritanian) government's backlash. In September 1986, a
group of 30 black intellectuals criticized racial discrimination and the
plans of the beydanes to take over land in the south belonging to blacks
in a document called 'The Manifesto of the Oppressed Black Mauritanian.'
Twenty-one people were arrested, savagely tortured, condemned to long
prison sentences after a grossly unfair trial and held under harsh
conditions, without access to their families or to medical
facilities...
- Description of incident
- "Amnesty International reported in its Annual Report of 1987:
'They were charged with holding unauthorized meetings, displaying and
distributing material harmful to the national interest, and making
racialist propaganda. They were convicted on all charges...The trial
lasted less than a day. The defendants were denied access to defense
lawyers before the trial and the defense lawyers were given insufficient
time to examine the prosecution dossiers and withdrew from the trial in
protest when their request for more time was rejected. The defendants
were apparently convicted largely on the basis of statements they had
made while detained incommunicado in police custody. Several of the
defendants were reported to have alleged in court that they had been
tortured or ill-treated in detention and one woman defendant stated that
she had been raped by a senior police officer at the time of her arrest,
but the court apparently failed to investigate these allegations. Four
were sentenced to six-month prison terms and 17 to four and five-year
prison sentences, with fines, to be followed by five and 10 years
internal exile and; loss of civil rights. The heaviest sentences were
opposed on Ibrahima Sarr, a journalist, Abdoulaye Barry, an official in
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ibrahima Sall, a lecturer at the
University of Nouakchott, and Tene Youssouf Gueye, a writer and poet who
was reported to have intended to stand as a candidate in the forthcoming
elections.'"
- Results of incident
- "The Court of Appeal threw out their appeals even though the
government did not challenge the appeals in four of the cases. There were
demonstrations in different parts of the country, in protest against the
trials. The government's response was to arrest more than 100 people.
Some of the accused were imprisoned, both in order to punish them for
their support of the black defendants and to serve notice on all blacks
about the high risk of opposition to Arab/Berber domination. At least
forty people were given prison sentence, between eight months and five
years... "
Source: Human Rights Watch/Africa Watch, "Mauritania Persecution of Black
Mauritanians", September 7, 1989, Pg. 8-9