Culture

Last to abolish slavery, Mauritania still hunts anti-slavery activists

The institution of slavery, though abolished some 37 years ago in Mauritania, still has significant scars on the country’s landscape

Published

6 years ago

July 23, 2018

Africa News Watch

The institution of slavery, though abolished some 37 years ago in Mauritania, still has significant scars on the country’s landscape.

The effect of the discredited practice came to the fore recently as two anti-slavery activists freed from prison in Mauritania vowed an all-out fight to rescue their nation from one of the world’s worst slavery rates, saying jail and torture were no deterrent.

Mauritania was the last nation to abolish slavery, outlawing it in 1981, and more than two in every 100 of its people still live as slaves, according to the 2018 Global Slavery Index.

Human rights groups say government made no effort to stamp it out and arrests people who speak out against it.

Abdallahi Matallah Saleck and Moussa Biram were jailed for their alleged role in a protest and charged with inciting riots and rebellion. They spent two years in a remote desert prison where they say they suffered horrible abuse.

“They tortured us, they did everything they could so we would back down. But we will never, ever back down,” Biram told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Less than a week after being released, both were back on the streets of Nouakchott, encouraging fellow members of the Initiative for the Resurgence of the Abolitionist Movement (IRA) to stay strong.

“The fight has just begun,” Biram said adding he is not in good health and has injuries from torture and beatings. “I can’t even stand up because of my legs which people hit with batons.”

A government spokesman said allegations of torture were false and an independent body called the National Mechanism for the Prevention of Torture had visited the detention site in 2017 and found no human rights violations.

Government previously denied making arbitrary arrests and said that it prosecutes “unlawful and unregistered organisations that provoke riots, chaos and insecurity.”

Because government refused to register the IRA as an organisation, the men could be jailed at any time, said Francois Patuel of Amnesty International.

“We know we’re not safe, but we are not afraid,” Saleck told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

“This is our country no matter what and we have to fight against discrimination and slavery,” he said.

Slavery in Mauritania follows racial lines, with black descendants of ethnic groups from the country’s south typically enslaved by lighter-skinned Mauritanians.

Some Mauritanians are born into slavery and spend their lives as domestic or farm workers.

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Culture

Egypt reclaims 3,400-year-old stolen statue of King Ramses II

Published

9 hours ago

April 23, 2024

Akanimoh Etim

Egypt has received a 3,400-year-old statue depicting the head of King Ramses II that was stolen and smuggled out of the country more than three millennia a ago, the country’s Antiquities Ministry said in a statement.

According to the Ministry, the statue was stolen from the Ramses II temple in the ancient city of Abydos in Southern Egypt more than three decades ago.

Head of Egypt’s Antiquities Repatriation Department, Shaaban Abdel Gawad, who received the artefact said though the exact date the artefact was stolen is not known, the piece is estimated to have been stolen in the late 1980s or early 1990s.

“The statue is now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo but not on display. The artefact will be restored,” he said.

He stated that Egyptian authorities spotted the artefact when it was offered for sale in an exhibition in London in 2013 before it was moved to several other countries before reaching Switzerland.

“This head is part of a group of statues depicting King Ramses II seated alongside a number of Egyptian deities,” Abdel Gawad said.

King Ramses II is one of ancient Egypt’s most powerful Pharaohs. Also known as Ramses the Great, he was the third pharaoh of the 19th Dynasty of Egypt and ruled from 1279 to 1213 BC.

“Egypt collaborated with Swiss authorities to establish its rightful ownership and Switzerland handed over the statue to the Egyptian embassy in Bern last year, but it was only recently that Egypt brought the artefact home, he added.

Culture

Ghana mourns as top gospel music icon Koda passes away

Published

1 day ago

April 22, 2024

Akanimoh Etim

The Ghanaian entertainment industry has, once again, been thrown into mourning following the death of renowned gospel musician, Kofi Owusu Dua Anto, known professionally as Koda, who passed away on Sunday at the age of 46.

According to reports, the gospel music icon and producer died from a kidney-related condition he had been suffering from for sometime.

Koda, renowned for hit songs like “Hossana”, “Nkwaa Abodo”, “Nsem Pii” and “Adooso”, was also a producer of repute who gained fame for his inspiring compositions and his captivating, soul-stirring vocals that struck a chord with audiences nationwide.

A local media reports that he worked with a lot of Gospel musicians in Ghana and Nigeria including popular Nigerian gospel singer, Nathaniel Bassey.