Dakar
25 June 2008
The government and relatives of terrorist suspects in Mauritania haveconcerns as those charged await trial. The government has moved thesuspects inside a military garrison to prevent another escape, buttheir relatives say they are innocent, and that they are beingtortured. VOA's Nico Colombant at our Dakar bureau has more withreporting by Ebrima Sillah in this the third part of a series of lifein post-election Mauritania, after decades of military rule.
Women, mostly mothers and sisters of terror suspects, stage a sit-in outside Mauritania's Supreme Court in Nouakch.
AminatouMint Ayouba says women have an advantage over men in having theirvoices heard, because she says, if the men were here protesting, theywould be beaten up by police.
She says her only son was takenaway one morning, when police broke into her home with guns raised. She says she has not seen him since.
Lala Mint Sidi is alsoangry. She says her brother was in the final year of universitystudies when he was arrested while sleeping at his home. She says heis innocent and does not know why he is being jailed.
Mauritania'sgovernment has been rounding up dozens of people it calls suspectedIslamic terrorists, after a string of attacks against tourists,soldiers, and the Israeli embassy.
After several key suspects inthe murder of the French tourists fled the main Nouakchott jail andwere recaptured, terror suspects were moved to a new prison inside amilitary garrison.
Mint Sidi says she has heard the detained are being tortured, and that they are being kept up without sleep. She says she also heard the detainees were forced to sign statementsthat had been written in French, even though they do not understandFrench.
A report issued by London-based Amnesty Internationalsays that in May, about 40 people accused of involvement in armedterrorist attacks were detained incommunicado for longer than the 15days allowed by Mauritanian law. It said some were tortured.
Previousterror suspects who were released said they had been burned withcigarettes and had their hands tied under their knees and with a metalbar suspended from the ceiling in what is called the "jaguar position."
AmnestyInternational said there had been no public reaction from thegovernment about these allegations. Officials were not available tocomment about the women's protests or their allegations.
Thepresident of the Bar Association of Mauritania, Ahmed Ould Yusuf OuldSheikh Sidna, told VOA that with terror suspects all normal legalprocedures are being ignored.
Since their relocation insidemilitary barracks, he says, it makes it very difficult for defenselawyers to have access to their clients. He says it is impossible toknow what the military is doing with the detainees, since normal prisonrules do not seem to apply anymore.
Sheikh Sidna says hebelieves Mauritania's government is creating its own enemies, to getmore funding and U.S. help for its military as part of the war onterror. He says he does not believe there are extreme forms of Islamin Mauritania.
But anthropologists in Mauritania say Islamicradicalism has grown during the past decades and accelerated even moresince open elections in 2007 ended years of military-dominated rule.
Theysay unemployed youth, who come to cities losing their tribal roots, oruniversity educated men who get no jobs, despite working hard to getdiplomas, often turn to extreme religious ideology. They also say someshows on Arab satellite channels, which are becoming more and moreaccessible, also fuel extremism.
The government says theterror threat is real, and that the group al-Qaida in the IslamicMaghreb has been recruiting Mauritanians into training camps in theSahara.
Elected in 2007, President Ould Sidi Mohamed CheikhAbadallahi has denied restricting civil liberties. He has said thedemocratic system Mauritanians are trying to put in place cannot acceptthis.