In Mauritania, The Fight To Abolish Slavery Runs Into Islam

5

Slavery is sanctioned in Islam. The word for a black person in Arabic is abid, or slave. Makes you scratch your head, doesn't it? Consider how many African Americans convert to Islam. Or worse yet, Arabic is now mandatory in a Harlem public school. More proof of the epic failure of African American leadership.

This speaks to the power of disinformation and propaganda, and the effects of the brutal enforcement of the blasphemy laws under Islam (do not criticize Islam, under penalty of death). The truth remains hidden. Unfathomable human rights abuses and shocking war crimes remain largely unknown to the masses — not to the millions of victims, but they have been silenced.

In Mauritania, one activist speaks out, but even the NGOs and "Human Rights" organizations that pretend to speak for him denounce his actions in accordance with sharia law. What worthless quislings.

Story continues below advertisement

In Mauritania, The Fight To Abolish Slavery Runs Into Radical Islamism [sic] Le Monde

In the northwestern African nation, anti-slavery activist Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid is accused of burning pages from a holy book that promoted slavery, prompting a call for his execution and a return to Sharia Law.

Child labor in Mauritania (UN/Jean Pierre Laffont) Child labor in Mauritania (UN/Jean Pierre Laffont)

By Christophe Châtelot
Le Monde/Worldcrunch

NOUAKCHOTT – Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid, a prominent anti-slavery activist in this northwestern African nation, is sitting in jail. The president of the Initiative for the Resurgence of Abolitionism (IRA) in Mauritania was arrested on April 29 with ten other people – relatives, IRA leaders and ordinary activists — accused of “violating Mauritanian Islamic values” after an anti-slavery demonstration.

Though denied by authorities, slavery is still a common practice in Mauritania. Amnesty International is asking for the release of these “prisoners of conscience.”

On April 27, Biram, a descendant of slaves, gathered a group of activists for a collective Muslim prayer held outside, as slavery is a taboo subject in places of worship. It is a political act. After the prayers, he set fire to pages from books from the Maliki School of Islamic law, books that talk about servants’ rights and masters’ duties. These ancient books that promote slavery are still studied today.

Biram took great care not to burn the pages mentioning the Koran, Allah or Muhammad. But he was arrested a few hours later with great violence, thanks to an impressive number of elite forces.

Since then, Mauritanian NGOs like Mauritanian Human Rights Watch, SOS Slaves, and the Mauritanian Human Rights League, have denounced this book-burning as “provocative and ill advised.” They nevertheless ask for the immediate release of Biram and his relatives “so that they can have a trial as soon as possible, according to international standards.” After a month in custody, the prisoners were charged with threatening state security. Three of the ten activists — but not Biram — have been released.

For Amnesty International, freedom of speech includes “forms of expressions which can be considered as deeply shocking.” And indeed Biram’s autodafé shocked even his closest friends. “Biram is out of control; he is going too far and it harms the cause he defends," a close relative confides. "But it’s not a reason to harass him.”

In February 2011, the Mauritanian President pardoned Biram and five other IRA members after they were sent to prison for political activism. Some in Nouakchott worry that legal authorities could characterize the book-burning as a “terrorist act,” and inflict severe punishment.

“As Islamist groups are taking over in neighboring Mali, the Mauritanian government might try to pander to religious Mauritanians. Biram would be the perfect scapegoat,” says a Human Rights activist. The Mauritanian Human Rights action group concurs, wondering if “the hysterical crowd marching through the streets, screaming about blasphemy and asking for Biram’s death” is spontaneous or not. The public television showed the book-burning images over and over, reporting on the “fury of the huge masses.”

A delegation met with President Aziz to ask for a “doctrinal punishment against the IRA apostates.” What worries Boubacar Messaoud, president of SOS Slaves, is that the President is promising to apply Sharia law in Mauritania although he has always been a regional leader in the fight against al-Qaeda. A number of NGOs are denouncing a “growing Talibanization of society.” There are accounts of radical Islamism [sic] spreading in mosques of densely populated neighborhoods, where imams are getting the attention of unemployed youths.

The Mauritanian President, elected in the summer of 2010 after leading a coup d’état in 2009, is faced with a growing political opposition, who is asking for his resignation. In a regional context of crisis, the Mauritanian society is divided, caught between Black Africa (where the slaves hailed) and the Arab-Berber area (the Moors, who were the slaves’ masters).

Slavery is a sensitive subject. “For the authorities, this problem vanished when slavery was abolished in 1981 and since its criminalization in the penal code, in 2007. We speak about it in the past tense, we tell the story of a grandmother who was a slave. Today slaves might not be controlled through violence, but they are all around us, guarding camels and cleaning up the streets, even though we deny it,” denounces Boubacar Messaoud.

Read the article in French in Le Monde.

Photo-  UN/Jean-Pierre Laffont

The Truth Must be Told

Your contribution supports independent journalism

Please take a moment to consider this. Now, more than ever, people are reading Geller Report for news they won't get anywhere else. But advertising revenues have all but disappeared. Google Adsense is the online advertising monopoly and they have banned us. Social media giants like Facebook and Twitter have blocked and shadow-banned our accounts. But we won't put up a paywall. Because never has the free world needed independent journalism more.

Everyone who reads our reporting knows the Geller Report covers the news the media won't. We cannot do our ground-breaking report without your support. We must continue to report on the global jihad and the left's war on freedom. Our readers’ contributions make that possible.

Geller Report's independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our work is critical in the fight for freedom and because it is your fight, too.

Please contribute here.

or

Make a monthly commitment to support The Geller Report – choose the option that suits you best.

Quick note: We cannot do this without your support. Fact. Our work is made possible by you and only you. We receive no grants, government handouts, or major funding. Tech giants are shutting us down. You know this. Twitter, LinkedIn, Google Adsense, Pinterest permanently banned us. Facebook, Google search et al have shadow-banned, suspended and deleted us from your news feeds. They are disappearing us. But we are here.

Subscribe to Geller Report newsletter here— it’s free and it’s essential NOW when informed decision making and opinion is essential to America's survival. Share our posts on your social channels and with your email contacts. Fight the great fight.

Follow Pamela Geller on Gettr. I am there. click here.

Follow Pamela Geller on
Trump's social media platform, Truth Social. It's open and free.

Remember, YOU make the work possible. If you can, please contribute to Geller Report.

Join The Conversation. Leave a Comment.

We have no tolerance for comments containing violence, racism, profanity, vulgarity, doxing, or discourteous behavior. If a comment is spammy or unhelpful, click the - symbol under the comment to let us know. Thank you for partnering with us to maintain fruitful conversation.

If you would like to join the conversation, but don't have an account, you can sign up for one right here.

If you are having problems leaving a comment, it's likely because you are using an ad blocker, something that break ads, of course, but also breaks the comments section of our site. If you are using an ad blocker, and would like to share your thoughts, please disable your ad blocker. We look forward to seeing your comments below.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
5 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Frank
Frank
11 years ago

Memo to the Irish Foreign Minister who wants to block West-bank products because the Foreign Mistier is a PC jerk who has to ID with “oppressed Palestinian peoples.” Well, Mr. Foreign Minister here are the real oppressed people. What’s more oppressive than Slavery? Well, maybe the absurdity of real Islam.

InfidelForLife
InfidelForLife
11 years ago

“How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries!” ~ Sir Winston Churchill, 1899

Waragha beida
Waragha beida
11 years ago

I was in mautitania when yhus event occurs and i assure you this activist burnt many books and not some pages.
Indeed the freedom of speed is a right but sometime they are limits for freedom.
Mr biram was arrested three days after tht fact and most of all after after a gathering of many mauritanian denying what he did and asking for justice.

amir
amir
11 years ago

Dear Waragha Beida let’s concentrate on the fact that slavery is allowed in Islam.There should be a campaign to encourage the Muslim black Americans to read the Quran.

Josh
Josh
11 years ago

Slavery is allowed in the Bible and Torah. What’s the difference? And before anyone gets on the idea that the new testament negates the old testament, Jesus said he had come not to destroy the old law, but to fulfill it. All three major monotheistic religions endorse slavery. Don’t act all high and mighty over someone else’s religion when your holy book says the same thing.
And yes in America we don’t believe slavery is right anymore, but that’s because we have a conscience and not because it was condemned by religion.

Sponsored
Geller Report
Thanks for sharing!