Mauritania supreme court orders anti-slavery activists freed

Nouakchott (AFP) - Mauritania's supreme court on Tuesday ordered two anti-slavery activists, one of them a former presidential candidate, to be set free after downgrading the crimes they were convicted for in January 2015.

"The Mauritanian supreme court ordered that Biram Ould Dah Ould Abeid and Brahim Ould Bilal be freed," their lawyer Brahim Ould Ebetty told AFP.

"The two men should be freed immediately," the court judgement read.

Ould Abeid, runner-up in the 2014 presidential elections and leader of the Abolitionist Movement in Mauritania, was sentenced to two years in jail along with Ould Abetty for a public order offence and belonging to a non-authorised organisation.

The supreme court downgraded those offences to failing to disperse when ordered to do so by law enforcers, which carries a maximum one-year jail sentence, meaning they have already served their time.

Despite being officially abolished in 1981, slavery is still deeply entrenched in the vast largely desert nation where light-skinned Berbers enslaved local black populations after settling in Mauritania centuries ago.

Slave status is also often passed on from generation to generation, according to rights groups.

"The supreme court found that the court at Rosso and the appeal court at Aleg had legally misclassified the facts used against the two men," Ould Ebetty said, referring to the two jurisdictions that sentenced them and then upheld the sentences.

"I am satisfied that the supreme court has upheld the rule of law and that there is no longer any prisoner of conscience in my country," Ould Ebetty added.

Amnesty International has previously said the activists were arrested while trying to educate people about land rights in the west African country, where descendants of slaves are often forced to give up a portion of their crops to traditional masters.

In August 2015, Mauritania adopted a new law making slavery a "crime against humanity" and doubling the maximum prison term to 20 years.

The country in December also set up three specialist slavery courts and decreed last month that March 6 would be national day for the fight against slavery.